Some of my little charges were amusing and interesting; one or two repelled me; to others I was strongly drawn. One little boy of five or six was quaint and original: when I asked him who God was he sighed and said, “That’s more than _I_ know.” He defined the stomach as “a kind of bread-basket, ain’t it?” A bare-footed, brown-eyed boy of perhaps twelve found a warm place in my heart. It was hard work not to pet him. I grew almost sentimental over him, and made occasions for him to raise his eyes, just to look into their brown depths. I remember thinking, “Those eyes will make some girl’s heart ache some day.” They almost made mine ache then. He seemed indifferent to my poorly veiled preference for him, and evidently had no ambition to become “‘teacher’s pet.’” One boy much older than the others grew insubordinate and I told him he must apologize for his impudence or leave the school. As he was to attend the Academy in a few weeks, he felt independent and refused. Having to stand my ground for the sake of discipline, I let him pack up his books and leave, but it was hard work to keep from calling him back. I knew he was sorry, but couldn’t say so. The winter school which I taught was in another district--Johnny Cake Hollow--in a little red schoolhouse in the same neighbourhood where the youth lived to whom I had written notes in school. Although I had then recovered from my early fancy, I was still sentimental enough to wish I knew which of the battered old desks had been his. Boarding about half a mile from the schoolhouse in a family with a lot of children, some of the elder ones of whom had attended the Academy with me, I carried my dinner in a two-quart pail, and trudged through the snow in all kinds of weather, all of which helped to make me more hardy than I had been before. The bigger boys went ahead to break the paths and open the stove, and “the teacher” followed surrounded by a little group of red-hooded girls and sturdy urchins, their caps with ear-laps pulled down low over their faces, their dinner pails gleaming in the sunshine. I would have been happy that winter with its rugged pleasures and the consciousness that I was earning money but for my perpetual anxiety over the arithmetic lessons. It was easy enough with the B-class, but with the A-class I was in continual hot water. Studying harder out of school than any of my pupils did in school, I was always apprehensive lest something come up that I could not explain. I knew that some of the older boys and girls understood their lessons better than I did--or would, if we advanced much farther in the book. Always promptly dismissing the arithmetic class, I let the others run overtime. I am afraid I kept the pupils back lest they get to that _terra incognita_ (the back part of the book) where I was so lamentably weak. In other respects I think I was a good teacher; in that I know there could scarcely have been a poorer.