Latterly, however, there had arisen a new cause for quarrel, before which everything else sank into insignificance. Now, though the village of Devonshire could boast but one public school-house, said house being divided into two departments, the upper and lower divisions, there were in the town several district schools; and for the last few years a committee of three had been annually appointed to examine and decide upon the merits of the various candidates for teaching, giving to each, if the decision were favorable, a slip of paper certifying his or her qualification to teach a common school. It was strange that over such an office so fierce a feud should have arisen; but when Mr. Tiverton, Squire Lamb, and Lawyer Whittemore, in the full conviction that they were doing right, refused a certificate of scholarship to a niece of Mrs. Judge Tisdale, and awarded it to one whose earnings in a factory had procured for her a thorough English education, the villagers were roused as they had never been before—the aristocracy abusing, and the democracy upholding the dismayed trio, who at last quietly resigned their office, and Devonshire was without a school committee.
In this emergency something must be done, and as the two belligerent parties could only unite on a stranger, it seemed a matter of special providence that only two months before the quarrel began, young Dr. Holbrook, a native of Boston, had rented the pleasant little office on the village common, formerly occupied by old Dr. Carey, whose days of practice were over. Besides being handsome, and skillful, and quite as familiar with the poor as the rich, the young doctor was descended from the aristocratic line of Boston Holbrooks, facts which tended to make him a favorite with both classes; and, greatly to his surprise, he found himself unanimously elected to the responsible office of sole Inspector of Common Schools in Devonshire. It was in vain that he remonstrated, saying he knew nothing whatever of the qualifications requisite for a teacher; that he could not talk to girls unless they happened to be sick; that he should make a miserable failure, and be turned out of office in less than a month. The people would not listen. Somebody must examine the teachers, and that somebody might as well be Dr. Holbrook as any one.
“Only be strict with ’em and draw the reins tight; find out to your satisfaction whether a gal knows her P’s and Q’s before you give her a stifficut: we’ve had enough of your ignoramuses,” said Colonel Lewis, the democratic potentate to whom Dr. Holbrook was expressing his fears that he should not give satisfaction. Then, as a bright idea suggested itself to the old gentleman, he added: “I tell you what, just cut one or two at first; that’ll give you a name for being particular, which is just the thing.”
Accordingly, with no definite idea as to what was expected of him, except that he was to find out “whether a gal knew her P’s and Q’s,” and was also to “cut one or two of the first candidates,” Dr. Holbrook accepted the situation, and then waited rather nervously his initiation. He was never at his ease in the society of ladies, unless they stood in need of his professional services, when he lost sight of them at once, and thought only of their disease. His patient once well, however, he became nervously shy and embarrassed, retreating as soon as possible from her presence to the shelter of his friendly office, where, with his boots upon the table, and his head thrown back in a most comfortable position, he sat one April morning, in happy oblivion of the bevy of girls who were ere long to invade his sanctum.
“Something for you, sir. The lady will wait for an answer,” said his office boy, passing to his master a little note, and nodding toward the street.
Following the direction indicated, the doctor saw near his door an old-fashioned one-horse wagon, such as is still occasionally seen in New England among the farmers who till the barren soil and rarely indulge in anything new. On this occasion it was a square-boxed dark-green wagon, drawn by a sorrel horse, sometimes called by the genuine Yankee “yellow,” and driven by a white-haired man, whose silvery locks, falling around his wrinkled face, gave him a pleasing, patriarchal appearance, which interested the doctor far more than did the flutter of the blue ribbon beside him, even though the bonnet that ribbon tied shaded the face of a young girl.
The note was from her, and, tearing it open, the doctor read, in a pretty, girlish handwriting:
“Dr. Holbrook.”
Here it was plainly visible that a “D” had been written as if she would have said “Dear.” Then, evidently changing her mind, she had with her finger blotted out the “D,” and made it into an oddly-shaped “S,” so that it read:
“Dr. Holbrook—Sir: Will you be at leisure to examine me on Monday afternoon, at three o’clock?