The reverend superintendent had prepared an appalling array of
"posers" in accordance with the laws of the state, but my cousin at
my urgent request, assured him that I was an alumnus of one of the
greatest institutions in the world, that I was a clergyman of his own
denomination, that it was a waste of time to examine so distinguished
a scholar, that dinner was ready, and the hungry dominie was seduced
to the table where he partook of so much solid and liquid good cheer,
that he quite forgot his official duty, and gave me the required
certificate: thus I was saved from utter destruction.

In this isolated country town the coming of the schoolmaster in his
tour of boarding around, was the great social event of the year to
each family in this Barrington, so called from the numerous children
which the mothers bear. The fatted pig was invariably killed in his
honor, and he was regaled with fried pork, roast pig, broiled hog,
sausages, and doughnuts reeking with swine fat _ad nauseam_, galore.
The teacher was thus made bilious, dyspeptic and so ugly, that he
tried to get even with his carnivorous tormentors by making it "as
hot" as possible for their offspring.

At the opening of the school, this long and lank fifteen year old
pedagogue faced sixty pupils from the "a, b, c, tot" to the brawny
twenty-one-year-older, spoiling for a fight. When I assayed to take a
seat, the half-sawed-off hind legs of the chair gave way, and I fell
heels in air upon the dirty floor amid the yells and cat-calls of this
tumultuous army; then the stalwart ringleader came forward to throw me
into the snow bank, where my predecessor was nearly smothered with his
head under the snow and his feet uplifted to heaven.

I quickly pulled a concealed ruler, and with a blow on the head,