minute, without breaking out so upon me, I should have told all how it was, and you would have got your pay on the spot; but

you

"Pay!" fiercely interrupted Bunker, "then you admit you had the cheese, do you?

“No, sir, I admit no sich thing," quickly rejoined the former; "for I still say I never had a cheese of you in the world. But I did have a small grindstone of you at the time, and at jest the price you have charged for your supposed cheese; and here is your money for it, sir. Now, Bunker, what do you say to that?"

"Grindstone-cheese-cheese-grindstone!" exclaimed the now evidently nonplussed and doubtful Bunker, taking a few rapid turns about the room, and occasionally stopping at the table to scrutinize anew his hieroglyphical charge; "I must think this matter over again. Grindstone - cheese cheese grindstone. Ah! I have it; but may God forgive me for what I have done! It was a grindstone, but I forgot to make a hole in the middle for the crank."

Upon this curious development, as will be readily imagined, the opposing parties were not long in effecting an amicable and satisfactory adjustment. And, in a short time, the company broke up and departed, all obviously as much gratified as amused at this singular but happy result of the lawsuit.

As soon as all had left the room but Bunker and his sons, Locke, perceiving that the others now seemed to expect an announcement of his business, at once proceeded to make known the object of his visit.

66

Ah, indeed!" said Bunker, in surprise, as he keenly ran his eye over the rather slight proportions of the other. "Why, I had supposed, all the while, that you were some young sprig of the law, who had scented out our foolish little quarrel here from a distance, and had come to see whether

the court, like the monkey judge in the fable, would work up all the cheese himself, or leave enough to afford a nibble to a lawyer. But have you really come to offer yourself as a master for such a school as ours?"

"I came for that purpose, sir,” replied Locke; "and I trust to be found qualified for the situation. I have brought with me a certificate of qualifications; and further, I am very willing to be examined personally by yourself and others."

"I have been examining you, for some minutes, with my eyes," said the other, "and that is a way of examining masters, for our school at least, which is more necessary than you may imagine. You may have learning enough for us, perhaps; but the question first to be decided is, whether you will be equal to managing our rough boys in the mountains here."

The two largest boys, who had stood in a corner glancing at the person of our hero with a sort of contemptuous twinkling of their eyes, now whispered together, and giggled outright, apparently at the thought that such a fellow should ever attempt to give them a thrashing; for they had always been so accustomed to associate schoolmasters with thrashings, that they never thought of the former without the accompanying idea of the latter.

"Boys," resumed Bunker, "do you know what Josh Bemus intends doing this winter. I have been thinking, for a day or two past, that he probably would have about enough of the tiger in him to make you a very suitable master, if he could be had. You have had king log, and trod upon him; and now, if you don't get king stork, it wont be because you don't deserve it."

"You will hardly get Josh, I think," replied one of the boys. "He told me, at the turkey-shooting last week, that he had engaged to tend horses this winter at the stage-tavern

down on Roaring River, because he rather do it than keep school."

"Well, every one for his taste," said Bunker, laughing. "I suppose Josh is not a fellow that would take much pleasure in a thinking life; though, as he has succeeded in subduing one or two unruly schools, I had thought of him for But as that is now out of the question, and as I can hear of no other person who will do, I think we may as well examine into this gentleman's qualifications, now he has applied for the school."

ours.

"I have but little hope, sir, that I shall be considered a proper teacher of your district," observed Locke, who had become so much disconcerted by the ominous conduct of the boys, and the remarks of their father of a similar significance, that he now began to think of beating a retreat. "I cannot be the person you want, I think, from what I gather from your observations; and therefore we may as well drop the subject at once, perhaps."

66

"O, I don't know about that, sir," rejoined Bunker. "You look hardly equal to the task, be sure; but there is considerable snap in those black eyes of yours, I see. I have seen several fellows, in my time, of as little bodily show as you, who turned out to be a match for any thing when called to act. And I should not be surprised if you should prove to be one of the same kidney. Boys," he continued, turning to his sons, "you know how sadly you all got disappointed in that little, feeble-looking master of yours last winter. You calculated, when he began his school, that you should be able to control him as you pleased; but you soon found you had reckoned without your host, I believe."

"Well, he was a mean scamp, for all that," replied the oldest boy; "and we should have shipped him, at one time, if some of the boys had not flummuxed from the agreement. For he deserved it enough, and no mistake. Only think!

He made a rule, that every one who did not get into the school-house as soon as he did, after our play-spell at noon, should take a ferruling. And then what does he do but join us in sliding down hill on a hand-sled; and when we got warm at it, and just as a great load of us, he and all, had got under weigh and could n't stop, off he jumps, gives the sled a kick, and cuts and runs for the school-house, which he reached first, of course; and we had to be ferruled for breaking the rule. Now, you know, father, that was n't a fair shake, and he ought to have been walloped for it; and the boys were sneaks, that they had not stood by us, when we tried, the next day, to turn the tables on him

"As he had first done on you, for some previous trick, eigh?” interrupted the former. "You have generally had strange doings in school, both by scholars and teachers, we all know; but now they have put me in committee, I intend to look after you a little myself. Now, sir," he added, again turning to Locke, “now, sir, we will come back to your case, if you please what will be your price a month, and boarded?"

"Fifteen dollars."

"We gave but fourteen last winter, and the master could manage such a set of fellows as ours, too. The district will never consent to rise on that price. Can't you fall a dollar?"

"Perhaps I might, if I could make up my mind to undertake your school."

"Make up your mind! why, you offered yourself; and did not come to trifle with me, did you?"

you

"Certainly not."

"Well, wait then till we have thought and talked this business all out. Don't get frightened before you are hurt. You may think better of some of us before we get through. But there is another thing: our district require a master to teach all the working days in the month, and not twenty-two

days, as you masters generally make a monthconsent to that?"

- would you

"Perhaps I should not be disposed to quarrel with you, even on that point, if I were to take your school."

"Very well. So then we can agree upon the terms, I see,” said Bunker. "Now, for the main question · do you know any thing?"

"I trust so, sir," said Locke, hardly knowing yet what to make of the man, "I trust so.

my late preceptor

Here is a certificate from

will you hear it read?”

"No," replied the other, "I should place no dependence on any thing of that sort. Every one who goes to an academy gets a certificate, if he wants one, I have noticed; while not one in three, who go there, are fit for teachers. So you see, that there is more than an even chance that we get cheated, when we take a man on certificate. Why, how, sir, could a preceptor know whether you could govern a school, when you had never tried it? And how could he certify, that you had a faculty to teach in a school that neither of you had ever seen, where every scholar, perhaps, would require the application of a different method, before he could be brought to learn any thing worth mentioning?"

"I offered the paper only to show my acquirements that I understood all the sciences taught in common schools," said Locke in reply.

"O, I presume you have gone over enough of what is put down in the books," resumed the other. "But how can I tell, from your recommendation, whether you can think for vourself, independent of your books; and what is more for a teacher, whether you can teach others to think for themselves? Why, sir, I have known many a fellow returned from an academy, and even a college, who had no more ideas of his own than a blue jay. And besides that, his brains were so trammeled by rules, &c. that there was little pros