view of sea and shore. The summer vacation now prevailed, and
after finding the door unfastened, and taking a long look through
one of the seaward windows, and reflecting afterward for some time
in a shady place near by among the bayberry bushes, I returned to
the chief place of business in the village, and, to the amusement
of two of the selectmen, brothers and autocrats of Dunnet Landing,
I hired the schoolhouse for the rest of the vacation for fifty
cents a week.

Selfish as it may appear, the retired situation seemed to
possess great advantages, and I spent many days there quite
undisturbed, with the sea-breeze blowing through the small, high
windows and swaying the heavy outside shutters to and fro. I hung
my hat and luncheon-basket on an entry nail as if I were a small
scholar, but I sat at the teacher's desk as if I were that great
authority, with all the timid empty benches in rows before me. Now
and then an idle sheep came and stood for a long time looking in at
the door. At sundown I went back, feeling most businesslike, down
toward the village again, and usually met the flavor, not of the
herb garden, but of Mrs. Todd's hot supper, halfway up the hill.
On the nights when there were evening meetings or other public
exercises that demanded her presence we had tea very early, and I
was welcomed back as if from a long absence.

Once or twice I feigned excuses for staying at home, while
Mrs. Todd made distant excursions, and came home late, with both
hands full and a heavily laden apron. This was in pennyroyal time,
and when the rare lobelia was in its prime and the elecampane was
coming on. One day she appeared at the schoolhouse itself, partly
out of amused curiosity about my industries; but she explained that