She had cunningly, by straightforward and unscrupulous lying,
prejudiced the principal mother and boss woman of the pa
against the teacher and his wife; as a natural result of which
the old lady, who, like the rest, was very ignorant and ungrateful,
"turned nasty" and kept the children from school. The teacher
lost his temper, so the children were rounded up and hurried
down to school immediately; with them came August and her aunt,
with alleged explanations and excuses, and a shell-fish.
The aunt and sisters said they'd have nothing to do with August.
They didn't want her and wouldn't have her. The teacher said that,
under those circumstances, she'd better go and drown herself;
so she went home with them.

The whole business had been a plot by her nearest relations.
They got rid of the trouble and expense of keeping her,
and the bother of borrowing in person, whenever in need of trifles
in the grocery line. Borrowing recommenced with her dismissal;
but the teacher put a full stop to it, as far as he was concerned.
Then August, egged on by her aunt, sent a blackguardly letter
to the teacher's wife; the sick sister, by the way, who had been
nursed and supplied with food by her all along, was in it, and said
she was glad August sent the letter, and it served the schoolmistress right.
The teacher went up to the pa once more; an hour later, August in person,
accompanied, as usual, by a relation or two, delivered at the cottage
an abject apology in writing, the composition of which would have discouraged
the most enthusiastic advocate of higher education for the lower classes.

Then various petty annoyances were tried. The teacher is firmly convinced
that certain animal-like sounds round the house at night were due
to August's trying to find out whether his wife was as likely to be haunted