Just then other people happened in, and soon all was smooth between
the schoolmasters; when they parted company they were as good
friends as ever. But when old man Tyberg was on his way home, the
sexton's remarks kept cropping up in his mind, and now he was even
angrier than before.

"Why should that strippling say I could teach the children more if
I kept abreast of the times?" he muttered to himself. "He probably
thinks I'm too old, though he doesn't say it in plain words."
Tyberg could not get over his exasperation, and as soon as he
reached home he told it all to his wife.

"Why should you mind the sexton's chatter?" said the wife. "'Youth
is elastic, but age is solid,' as the saying goes. You're excellent
teachers both of you."

"Little good your saying it!" he grunted. "Others will think what
they like just the same."

The old man went about for days looking so glum that he quite
distressed his wife.

"Can't you show them they are in the wrong?" she finally suggested.

"How show them? What do you mean?"

"I mean that if you know your pupils to be just as clever as the
sexton's--"

"Of course they are!" he struck in.