Putnam patriot., 1920-06-11

Editor of The Patriot: am undecided as to whether to sue
 YOU for libel, or to go across the street
 and lick you, or to abolish you along
 with Harvard University and the U.
 s. Military Academy. And all of this
 because of that scandalous fifth dls-
 trict school report for the fall term of
 1874, which you reprinted in last weeks Patriot and in which l am made
 out to be the. chief dunce ot the
 school. The trouble with that report was that it was given to the school committee without my knowledge or
 consent, so that had no opportunity
 to inspect or correct 1t. The princf- nal of the school was queer sort of
 man and I found it difficult to make
 him see things from my point of view.
 He thus became somewhat preJudiced against me and one of the chief causes of his prejudice I will now state.
 The old fifth district sehoolhouse l had overfiowed in 1874 and the gram mar department had moved into Ches- | bro's hall (now Rich's) and, as every body in Putnam knows, there IS stage at one end of that hall. was t0 wears old, and being one of the youngest and smallest pupils, was glv- en a front seat. On one of my partlc- ularly bright days, when l had learned my lessons without opening my books, l I decided to have little target prac- tice, and chewed up good supply or paper wads, which are called spit halls" by vulgar schoolboys, being joined in this sport by Herm Carver and Lucius Hall.
 Poor Teacher
 i The target was the front of the stage, and we scored bulls eye for every spit-ball, but that miserable teacher, who should have been attend | ing to his class, happened to see us and he immediately ordered Lueius te cease firing, in order to thrash hlm, but told Herm. and me to continue hr- inc. In moment or two he returned i Iucius to his seat with orders to flre again. and he then took Herm. and me in hand, holding me over his knee and applying his ruler where it was most needed. He was quite impartial and treated us both alike, but while he was beating us we were kicking anu pounding him, trying to get free The teacher was a pretty robust fellow ana was rather too much for two bantam
 weights like Herm. and myself, so my brother Oscar, who was cofdy boy oi thirteen, decided to come to our ald
 and landed a few good ones on the
 principals solar plexus.
 Lucius also joined in and the strug-
 gle changed from Graeco-Roman to
 catch-as-eatch-ca with four of us
 against the principal. Having only
 two hands, he released the hght-
 weights and devoted himself to Oscar and Lueius. Seeing that my servlces were mo longer required l decided to leave the stuffy air of the schooifoom and 20 out and take a walk m the fresh air This idea was all right put mon reaching the street it occurred to
 me that I would have to pass my Ia
 ther's office on my way home and IT. ne
 saw me l knew that he would ask me
 if had left school because of illness, and I also knew that if 1 reached home
 earlier than usual my mother might
 ask me few embarrassing questions
 I never did like to answer questions,
 especially impertinent ones, but had
 to get home sooner or later.
 While all this deep thinking was go-
 ing on. I discovered that in throwing
 those spitballs, had so exerted my self that had torn my coat, and there
 was another subject on which my mother might question me. However,
 one of my numerous .aunts consented to mend the coat, and she was not too
 inouisitive, so I finally reached home at the regular hour, but the news had
 preceded me, although it was before
 the days of the telephone. Then, as
 now, there was sort of wireless tele-
 graph system which always won. The
 upshot of the whole thing was, that l
 returned to school the next day way
 ing a large white flag, but that teacher
 got even with me in his report for the