"Maybe I make it too easy for them?" snapped the old man. "Maybe I don't teach them anything?" he shouted, striking the table with his hand. "What on earth has come over you, Tyberg?" said the sexton. "You seem to resent everything I say." "Well, you always come at me with so many allusions!" Just then other people happened in, and soon all was smooth between the schoolmasters; when they parted company they were as good friends as ever. But when old man Tyberg was on his way home, the sexton's remarks kept cropping up in his mind, and now he was even angrier than before. "Why should that strippling say I could teach the children more if I kept abreast of the times?" he muttered to himself. "He probably thinks I'm too old, though he doesn't say it in plain words." Tyberg could not get over his exasperation, and as soon as he reached home he told it all to his wife. "Why should you mind the sexton's chatter?" said the wife. "'Youth is elastic, but age is solid,' as the saying goes. You're excellent teachers both of you." "Little good your saying it!" he grunted. "Others will think what they like just the same." The old man went about for days looking so glum that he quite distressed his wife. "Can't you show them they are in the wrong?" she finally suggested. "How show them? What do you mean?" "I mean that if you know your pupils to be just as clever as the sexton's--" "Of course they are!" he struck in. "--then you must see that your pupils and his get together for a test examination." The old man pretended not to be interested in her proposition, but all the same it caught his fancy. And some days later the sexton received a letter from him wherein he proposed that the children of both schools be allowed to test their respective merits. The sexton was not averse to this, of course, only he wanted to have the contest held some time during the Christmas holidays, so that it could be made a festive occasion for the children. "That was a happy conceit," thought he. "Now I shan't have to review any lessons this term." Nor was it necessary. It was positively amazing the amount of reading and studying that went on just then in the two schools! The contest was held the evening of the day after Christmas. The schoolroom had been decorated for the occasion with spruce trees, on which shone all the church candles left over from the Christmas Matins, and there were apples enough to give every child two apiece. It was whispered about that the parents and guardians who had come to listen to the children would be served with coffee and cakes. The chief attraction, however, was the big contest.