“It will be a long walk, Mr. Harlan,” Miss Grimshaw observed when she rose to leave. “I should have been glad on many accounts could Marston have boarded here; but for the present we could not arrange it so.”
“Oh, as for that matter, the walk will do him good; the harder one studies, the more exercise he should have. It will deprive him of companionship, save his books; but perhaps that will prove no loss. It is a delightful walk. I make the trip sometimes, and always return well paid for the trouble. I am only sorry I have so few pupils from your village. Frank Clavers boards here, and goes home on Friday.”
When Miss Grimshaw had gone, Mr. Harlan led the way into a large room where several boys and girls were studying. Taking his seat at the desk, he motioned me near him, and began questioning me closely in arithmetic and geography. When he had finished, he gave me a lesson in Latin grammar, and then seated me at his right hand, and by the side of another pupil, almost man grown, whom he called Lovell.
He then rung his desk-bell, and through the several doors came pupils from the recitation rooms; another touch of the bell, and others went out. There was no voice, no confusion; it was done with the order and precision of clock-work.
Twelve o’clock, and then such a buzz and whirr in the school-room I could neither see nor think. Soon Frank Clavers came with a noisy welcome, and led me out to see a new swing he had just been improvising, introducing me first to one and then to another.
“But you’ll know them soon enough, Marston. I only wish you boarded in the house; such capital times as we have. Fridays I go home. I am glad you are here to go with me.”
“But you do not walk, and I do all the time.”
“No matter. I have my pony sent down, and they can just as well send another. But say, whom do you sit with?”
“Mr. Harlan called him Lovell.”
“Lovell! why, he’s the very best scholar in school; poor though; going to be a minister;” and Frank ran on: “There goes the dinner-bell. What have you for dinner, Marston?”