The country school-teacher under the old order of things, and before the school law was amended, deserves a notice. Numbers of these old school-teachers, who furbished up their faculties and got passably well qualified to teach an ordinary district country school in the past, in many instances married the daughters of neighboring farmers, who attended their schools as pupils. In some instances, without a doubt, this teacher had occasion to punish his future wife for some slight infraction of school laws. Causing her to stand upon the floor or to write an extra exercise was a frequent method of such punishments. Becoming the teacher’s wife must, in after years, one would say, make the position rather anomalous, and would, one would think, be a delicate, debatable ground between husband and wife as the years rolled on. Ontario wives are noted for their urbanity, but in such instances it would be manifestly fair for the wife and former pupil to indulge in a little punishment for some infractions by her husband of new rules as the time went by. She could not fairly be blamed if she now and again gave him an extra dose of salt in his porridge, or refused him a light in the evening to do his reading by, or even indulged at a little pull of his whiskers, to pay off old scores of ante-nuptial days. We, however, charitably infer that, at the time the teacher insisted upon his punishments of his future wife, Cupid had not got around. These marriages have uniformly been happy ones, and these former teachers have become successful men after turning farmers. In many instances they get farms with their pupil wives, and having the work in them, usually succeed, and become good men for our country. Such former teachers are frequently found in our township councils, are school trustees, and useful men generally. As their children grow up to the age of understanding, it, however, must be just a little funny for their children to know that “pa” formerly punished “ma” in school, and they are always bound to aver that “ma” has not yet got even with “pa” in the account of punishment. CHAPTER XVIII. Horse-dealing transactions--A typical horse-deal--“Splitting the difference”--The horse-trading conscience--A gathering at a funeral--Another type of farmer--The sordid life that drives the boys away.