Through forest paths and from long distances in each direction came the
pupils to this first school of the region, and there were perhaps a
score of them in all, boys and girls, and the teacher was a fair young
woman from the distant town. The school-house was a structure of a
single room, built in the wood, and squirrels dropped nuts upon its
roof from overhanging boughs and peeped in at the windows, and
sometimes a hawk would chase a fleeing bird into the place, where it
would find a sure asylum, but create confusion. Once a flock of quail
came marching in demurely at the open door, while teacher and pupils
maintained a silence at the pretty sight. And once the place was
cleared by an invasion of hornets enraged at something. That was a
great day for the boys.

The studies were not as varied as in the cross-roads schools to-day.
There was the primer, and there were a few of the old Webster
spelling-books, but, while the stories of the boy in the apple tree and
the overweening milkmaid were familiar, the popular spelling-book was
Town's, and the readers were First, Second, Third and Fourth, and their
"pieces" included such classics as "Webster's Reply to Hayne" and
"Thanatopsis," and numerous clever exploits of S. P. Willis in blank
verse. Davie's Arithmetic was dominant, and, as for grammar, whenever
it was taught, Brown's was the favorite. There was, even then, in the
rural curriculum the outlining of that system of the common schools
which has made them of this same region unexcelled elsewhere in all the
world. There were strong men, men who could read the future,
controlling the legislation of some of the new States.

The studies mentioned, and geography were the duties now in hand, and
there was indifference or hopefulness or rivalry among those of the