"And I should think," I replied, giving him what I conceived to be a look of severe rebuke, "that a teacher of common decency and politeness is most needed of all." "I reckon you are right," he rejoined. "Is he the man you are looking for?" "I don't want to get into trouble here," said I, "but I insist upon fair treatment and I'm going to have it." "All right, sir. Now, what is it you want to know?" "Why, I was told that there was an opening for a school teacher in this neighborhood." "And so there is, but don't you know that no neighborhood could be proud of such a fact? Therefore, you ought to be more careful as to how you make your inquiries." I saw that he wanted to joke with me and I joked with him. And I soon found that this was the right course, for he invited me into his office and insisted upon my sharing his luncheon, cold bread and meat and a tin bucket of boiling coffee. I soon learned that he was newly graduated from a school of telegraphy, and that this was his first position. He had come from a city and he gave me the impression that he was buried alive; he said that he had entered an oath in his book that if some one didn't get off at his station pretty soon he would set the whole thing on fire and turn train robber. "Don't you think that would be a pretty good idea?" he asked, laughing. "It would be a pretty dangerous one, at least," I answered. "Yes, but without danger there is never any fun. My old man insisted upon my taking that night-school course; and the professor of the institution held out the idea that I could be a great man within a short time after graduating; led me to believe I could get charge of a big office in town, but here I am stuck up here in these hills. No rags about here at all." "No what?" "Rags, calico, women--catch on?" "You mean no society, to speak of." "That's it. Oh, away off in the country it's all right, but I can never go more than three miles from this miserable place. You'll have to go about fifteen miles." "How do you know?" "Why, an old fellow from a neighborhood about that far away came out here the other day and sent off a dispatch, telling some man off, I don't remember where, to send a teacher out there." "And one might have come by this time," I suggested, with a sense of fear. "No, you are the only one that has put in an appearance, and the only one that is likely to come. I understand that they don't treat teachers very well out there." "How so?" "The boys have a habit of ducking them in the creek, I hear." "Oh, is that all? Be fun for me." "You won't think so after you see those roosters. Let me see. Take the Purdy road out there, and go straight ahead to the east, and when you think you have gone about fifteen miles, ask for the house of Lim Jucklin. The last teacher, I understand, boarded at his house." "You appear to know a good deal about it."