I remember vividly that morning in November, the first day of school, when Czar Brench walked into the old schoolhouse, glanced smilingly round, and laid his package of books and his ruler, a heavy one, on the master's desk; then, coming forward to the box stove in the middle of the floor, he warmed his hands at the stovepipe. Such a big man! Six feet three in his socks, bony, broad-shouldered, with long arms and big hands.
He wore a rather high-crowned, buff-colored felt hat. Light buff, indeed, seemed to be his chosen color, for he wore a buff coat, buff vest and buff trousers. Moreover, his hair, his bushy eyebrows and his short, thin moustache were sandy.
Beaming on us with his smiling blue eyes, he rubbed his hands gently as he warmed them.
"I hope we are going to have a pleasant term of school together," he said, in a tone as soft as silk. "And it will not be my fault if we don't have a real quiet, nice time."
We learned later that it was his custom always to begin school with a beautiful speech of honeyed words—the calm before the storm.
"Of course we have to have order in the schoolroom," he said apologetically. "I confess that I like to have the room orderly, and that I do not like to hear whispering in study hours. When the scholars go out and come in at recess time, too, it sort of disturbs me to have crowding and noise. I never wish to be hard or unreasonable with my scholars—I never am, if I can avoid it. But these little things, as you all know, have to be mentioned sometimes, if we are going to have a really pleasant and profitable term.
"There is another thing that always make me feel nervous in school hours, and that is buzzing with the lips while you are getting your lessons, I don't like to speak about it, and there may be no need for it, but lips buzzing in study hours always make me feel queer. It's just as easy to get your lessons with your eyes as with your lips, and for the sake of my feelings I hope you will try to do so.
"Speaking of lessons," he went on, "I don't believe in giving long ones. I always liked short, easy lessons myself, and I suppose you do."
In point of fact he gave the longest, hardest lessons of any teacher we ever had! We had to put in three or four hours of hard study every evening in order to keep up; and if we failed—
By this time some of the larger boys—Newman Darnley, Ben Murch, Absum Glinds and Melzar Tibbetts—were smiling broadly and winking at one another. The new master, they thought, was "dead easy."