One year he fell into the hands of old Mrs. Heighten. She was a widow
who had been rich, but was now poor, and who had a place in the schools
because she needed it. She was so much like all the rest of this sort
that she need not be further described, and were it not for one
characteristic she should remain in oblivion, so far as this record is
concerned. But for this I must have her out.

She was poor and really a proud beggar of public charity, yet she was
of such genteel and lofty birth and bearing that teaching was a bore to
her. She really despised and hated her pupils, and they returned these
sentiments with interest. There was always rebellion in her room, and
to suppress it she resorted to all sorts of penalties and punishments.
She used to make pupils stand on the floor and extend an arm on a level
with the shoulder, and so hold a book till it seemed as if the arm
would break off. She herself stood by with a pin in her hand,
meanwhile, holding it at a slight distance below the extended arm and
sticking it into the hand of the suffering one if the aching member
were lowered an inch.

O Dante, you didn't begin to exhaust the possibilities of outrageous
punishments in all you saw in the infernal regions. Old Mrs. Heighten
could give you several points that you never dreamed of, and not tax
her powers of ingenuity very much either.

Yet "Dodd" worked the genius of this respectable old beldame to the
very verge of bankruptcy. She tried device after device upon the boy,
till at last it got to be a kind of race between the two as to which
should win. The old lady had no genuine interest in the welfare of her
pupil. He annoyed her and she wanted to rid herself of the annoyance.
That is a simple statement of the case from her side. As for "Dodd,"