CHAPTER VI.

The "Fall School" in "deestrick" number four had been in session for
more than a month when the Weavers moved into the country and came
within its jurisdiction. Preparations were at once made to increase
its numbers, if not its graces, to a very perceptible extent, from out
of the bosom of the Weaver homestead; for, as the youngest twins were
now "five past," they were held by the inexorable logic of rural
argumentation to be "in their sixth year," and so to come within the
age limit of the school law, and entitled to go to school and draw
public money.

Besides, "Old Man Stebbins owns nigh onter six eighties in the
deestrick, an' pays more school tax nor ary other man in Dundas
township, an' it hain't no more nor fair 'at ef he wants to send the
hull family, he orter be 'lowed ter, coz he hain't sent no one ter
school fur more 'n ten year, only one winter, when Si Hodges done
chores fer him fer his board, an' went ter school," explained old Uncle
Billy Wetzel to a company of objecting neighbors, as they all stood
together by a hitching post in front of the church, waiting for
"meetin' to take up," whittling and discussing local affairs meantime.

So the five young Weavers, headed by "Dodd," became members of the
"fall school in deestrick four, Dundas township," and were marched off
for the day, five times a week, with dinner for the crowd in a wooden
dinner pail, which was the special care of twins number one.

This laxity regarding twins number two would have been rebuked in a