“I wasn’t so ceremonious in the old times,” said Kellogg.
“No, I guess not. You’d say, ‘Come here, Joshua,’ and you’d jerk me out of my seat by the collar. ‘Did you stick that pin in my chair?’ That’s the way you used to talk. And then you’d give me an all-fired lickin’.”
Overcome by the mirthful recollections, Joshua burst into an explosive fit of laughter, in which presently he was joined by Joe and his old teacher.
“I hope you’ve forgiven me for those whippings, Mr. Bickford.”
“They were jest what I needed, Mr. Kellogg. I was a lazy young rascal, as full of mischief as a nut is of meat. You tanned my hide well.”
“You don’t seem to be any the worse for it now.”
“I guess not. I’m pretty tough. I say, Mr. Kellogg,” continued Joshua, with a grin, “you’d find it a harder job to give me a lickin’ now than you did then.”
“I wouldn’t undertake it now. I am afraid you could handle me.”
“It seems cur’us, don’t it, Joe?” said Joshua. “When Mr. Kellogg used to haul me round the schoolroom, it didn’t seem as if I could ever be a match for him.”
“We change with the passing years,” said Kellogg, in a moralizing tone, which recalled his former vocation. “Now you are a man, and we meet here on the other side of the continent, on the banks of the Yuba River. I hope we are destined to be successful.”