Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-10-25

l arter thinking It over he answered.:
 "Mebbe it wasn't the most digni- fiedest thing that ever happened, but can't see where it's going to do any hurt. If the gals begun it, then 1t wasn't his fault"
 That night the schoolmaster dropped in at Robinson's to see about having some clothes pegs put up. Miss Jennie was ready for him. There were three or four others present, and at proper moment she asked him to demonstrate certain example in mathematics.
 Excuse me-" he smilingly replied, "but you pronounce the word as de mon-strate' It is demonstrate"
 q beg your pardon"
 And I beg yours"
 A pocket dictionary settled the dis pute in the teachers favor, and then and there the husky son of farmer, who was present, whispered to the chagrined girl that he'd lick the teach CT before Saturday came again, and she didn't say word against it.
 Two or three days later it became known all over the neighborhood that it was MT. Cranes last week. He was to be licked out of the neighborhood If he heard, he went his way the same as before. Friday afternoon was the time appointed, and Will Hayes was the champion selected. When school was called again after dinner there were several visitors, and on the fences outside sat a dozen farmers. Instead of calling up the class in geog- raphy, the teacher took from his desk a pair of boxing gloves and said:
 "There are several young men here who would probably like to learn the art of boxing The man who is a man stands up squarely instead of roughing it. Will, wouldn't you like to step out doors and put these on with me?''
 Will said he would. That's what he was aching to do. Ten minutes later he was aching to get the gloves off. He had been jolted and jared and knocked head over heels until he thought his head was as big as bar rel Itahad all been done in good natured way, but beneath it he read the lesson, and that night he said to one of his cronies:
 Say, if that feller should turn him. self loose once we'd be little lambs 'longside of him. One of his swats would knock a barn off its underpin- nings."
 That put a quietus on any further thoughts of instruction, and Miss Jenny said to herself that she hated the young man from the depths of her heart. He called and corrected her grammar, and her hate was intensified. He called and found fault because her verses made sorrow" rhyme with tailor" and she stamped her foot. The girls wouldn't try another rush, and the boys refused to tackle him, while her father said that things were going better than ever before. In this emergency she turned to herself. There was a small lake on which the teacher used to skate for an hour in the even- ing. Sometimes he had company and
 
 ax and the family daughter might have been missed just at dusk one evening. Later on the family daughter might have been asked the cause of her rest lessness. She was up and down all over the house, and she finally put on her hood and cloak and went out into the night It was she with long pole who pulled the teacher out of the air hole into which he had skated and was in danger of drowning. It was she who wrapped her cloak around his shivering form as men carried him to her fathers house. It was she who acted as nurse for the next three days, and 1t was she who hid her face in her hands and said
 I'm an awful wicked girl. cut that air hole in the lake, hoping you would skate into it and be drowned"
 But I wasn't, you see," replied Crane.
 "No-o-o-o, and I'm so glad"
 And so am l. I wanted something to happen so that I could tell you-tell you-so that could'-
 And he -on-strated what he meant, and she accepted the pronuncia- ton of the word without appealing to the dictionary.