down there. Grid Bingham or John Craft would throw him out of the
window in a week. Finally, Jo Keys did not hesitate to recommend him
to go home; while Canfield, who knew his brother Morris, thought he
had better try the school.

Bart was surprised and indignant. He cut the matter very short.

"Gentlemen," he said quietly, but most decidedly, "I came down here to
keep your school, and I shall certainly do it," with a little nod
of his head to Keys. "I shall be glad to see you at almost any other
time, but just now I am engaged." The decided way in which he put an
end to the interview was not without its effect.

He called the scholars in, and began. They brought every sort of
reading-book, from the Bible, English Reader, American Preceptor,
Columbian Orator, Third Part, etc., to a New England Primer. But
beyond reading, and spelling, and writing, he had only arithmetic,
grammar and geography. On the whole, he got off well, and before the
end of the first week was on good terms, apparently, with his whole
school, with one or two exceptions; and so on through the second,
which closed on Friday, and Bart turned gladly and eagerly toward
home, to his mother and brothers.

The close of that week had been a little under a cloud, which left
just a nameless shadow over the commencement of the third, and Bart
began it with an uneasy feeling.

Bingham, a short, stout, compact young ruffian, of twenty-two or
twenty-three, not quite as tall as Bart, but a third more in weight,
and who had an ugly reputation as a quarrelsome fellow of many fights,