Not thus easily could Will be reached. His was the sorrow of a day, which passed away with the coming of to-morrow’s sun, and after a long consultation, it was decided that he should go to sea, and the next merchantman bound for the East Indies, which sailed from Boston, bore on its deck, as a common sailor, our cousin Will, who went from us reluctantly, for to him there was naught but terror, toil, and fear in “a life on the ocean wave.” But there was no other way to save him, they said, and so with bitter grief at our hearts, we bade adieu to the wayward boy, praying that God would give the winds and waves charge concerning him, and that no danger might befall him when afar on the rolling billow. CHAPTER IV. THE SCHOOLMISTRESS. Of the many thousand individuals destined to become the purchasers of a copy of this work, a majority have undoubtedly been, or are still teachers, and of these many will remember the time when they fancied that to be invested with the dignity of a teacher was to secure the greatest amount of happiness which earth can bestow. Almost from my earliest remembrance it had been the one great subject which engrossed my thoughts, and frequently, when strolling down the shady hill-side which led to our schoolhouse, have I fancied myself the teacher, thinking that if such were really the case, my first act should be the chastisement of half a score or more boys, who were in the daily habit of annoying me in various ways. Every word and action of my teacher, too, was carefully noted and laid away against the time when I should need them, and which came much sooner than I anticipated; for one rainy morning when Lizzie and I were playing in the garret, I overheard my father saying there was a chance for Rosa to teach school. “What, that child!” was my mother’s exclamation, but ere he could reply, “the child” had bounded down two pair of stairs, and stood at his elbow, asking, “Who is it?—Where is it?—And do you suppose I can get a certificate?” This last idea damped my ardor somewhat, for horrible visions came up before me, of the “Abbreviations” and “Sounds of the Vowels,” in both of which I was rather deficient. “_You_ teach school! You look like it!” said my sister Juliet. “Why, in less than three days, you’d be _teetering_ with the girls, if indeed you didn’t climb trees with the boys.” This _climbing_ was undeniably a failing of mine, there being scarcely a tree on the farm on whose topmost limbs I hadn’t at some time or other been perched; but I was _older_ now. I was _thirteen_ two days before, and so I reminded Juliet, at the same time begging of father to tell me all about it. It appeared that he had that day met with a Mr. Randall, the trustee of Pine District, who was in quest of a teacher. After learning that the school was small, father ventured to propose me, who, he said, “was crazy to _keep_ school.”