"See the conquerin' hero comes," he cried. "A place for him--a place for him!" And with the point of his stick he drove the six men on the bench so close together as to give me an excellent seat. "Thrice welcome, noble he-ro, as Perry Thomas says!" shouted Aaron Kallaberger, thrusting his hand into his bosom in excellent imitation of the orator. "He's lookin' pretty spry yet, ain't he, boys?" said Isaac Bolum. He stood before me, leaning over till his hands clasped his knees, and peered into my face, smiling. "The teacher ain't changed a bit." "Thank you for the reception," said I. "But explain. What's this all about?" Elmer Spiker folded the county paper and came around to our side of the stove. There he struck his favorite attitude, which was always made most effective by the endless operation of putting his spectacles in their case--pulling them out--waving them--_ad infinitum_. For in our valley spectacles are the sceptre of the sovereign intellect. "They was talkin' about lickin' the teacher," Elmer said, "and sech talkin' I never heard. It was the nonsensicalest yet. The way them boys was tellin' about the teachers they had knowed made me feel for your life when I seen you come in. I thought they'd fall on you like so many wolves." "Now see here, Elmer Spiker," shouted Henry Holmes, "that's an injestice. I never said I'd licked the teacher when I was a boy. I only said I'd tried it." "You give me to understand that the teacher was dead now," returned Elmer severely. "He is," cried Henry. "And you claim you done it." "I done it," shouted Mr. Holmes, pounding the floor with his cane. "I done it! You think I'm a murderer? Why, old Gilbert Spoonholler was ninety-seven year old when he went away. He was only forty when him and me had it out." "That's different," said Elmer calmly. "I understood from your original account that he died in battle." "I tho't so too, Henery," put in Isaac Bolum. "You misled me, complete. 'Here,' says I, 'at last I have met a man who has licked the teacher.' And all the time you was tellin' about it, we was admirin' you--Joe Nummler and me--and now we finds Gil Spoonholler lived fifty-seven year after that terrible struggle." "I can't just fetch my memory back to that particular incident, Henery," said Josiah, "but my recollection is that Gil Spoonholler held the school-house agin all comers, and that's sayin' a good deal, for we was tough as hickory when we was young." "The modern boys is soft," Aaron Kallaberger declared. "They regards the teacher in a friendlier light than they used to. They are weakenin'. The military sperrit's dyin' out. The spectacle is conquerin' the sword." [Illustration: Aaron Kallaberger.] This was too direct a slap at Elmer Spiker to pass unnoticed; Elmer was too old an arguer to use any ponderous weapon in return. He even smiled as he punctuated his sentences with his battered spectacle-case.