sticking the other foot up on the wall behind them.

"Dodd" was a pigmy beside these, but he read better than any of them,
and soon convinced Amos that he, "Dodd," must be taken down a peg, or
he, Amos, would find himself looked down upon by his pupils, who would
see him worsted by this stripling.

He strove to nettle the boy in many ways, but "Dodd" bore the slings
and arrows with a good deal of fortitude, and seemed to avoid a clash.
The experience with his grandfather had had a very softening effect
upon him, and he was slow to forget the lesson. He tried to be good,
and did his best for many weeks.

But Amos could ill endure the condition into which affairs were
drifting. Every day the boy improved in his reading, till it got so
that whenever he read all the school stopped to listen. This the
teacher felt would not do, and besides this, he had met the parson, and
"argyed" with him once, and it was the popular verdict that he had not
come out ahead in the encounter. All of which tended to make him bear
down on "Dodd," till finally he resolved that he would have a row with
the boy and that it should be in the reading class.

Do not start at this, beloved. The thing has been done multitudes of
times, not only in the country, but in the city as well, and many a
child has been made to suffer for the sake of satisfying grudges that
existed between teachers and parents.

So Amos was bound to settle with "Dodd." He watched his chance, and
along in early winter he found what he was looking for.