A SUM IN ARITHMETIC




Harry kept on his way to school, and arrived just the bell rang.
Many of my readers have seen a country schoolhouse, and will
not be surprised to learn that the one in which our hero obtained
his education was far from stately or ornamental, architecturally
speaking. It was a one-story structure, about thirty feet square,
showing traces of having been painted once, but standing greatly
in need of another coat. Within were sixty desks, ranged in pairs,
with aisles running between them. On one side sat the girls, on
the other the boys. These were of all ages from five to sixteen.
The boys' desks had suffered bad usage, having been whittled and
hacked, and marked with the initials of the temporary occupants,
with scarcely an exception. I never knew a Yankee boy who was not
the possessor of a knife of some kind, nor one who could resist the
temptation of using it for such unlawful purposes. Even our hero
shared the common weakness, and his desk was distinguished from
the rest by "H. W." rudely carved in a conspicuous place.

The teacher of the school for the present session was Nathan
Burbank, a country teacher of good repute, who usually taught six
months in a year, and devoted the balance of the year to surveying
land, whenever he could get employment in that line, and the cultivation
of half a dozen acres of land, which kept him in vegetables, and
enabled him to keep a cow. Altogether he succeeded in making a fair
living, though his entire income would seem very small to many