“What is it?” asked Effie.
“I’ll set Zeb Fuller and his boys after them.”
“That would do,” laughed Effie, merrily. “I do believe if Zeb Fuller met a ghost he’d insist on shaking hands.”
“He’s very much that kind of a boy,” said Brayton. “I’ve engaged him and Hy Allen and half-a-dozen more of the same class to assist me in keeping the Academy in order this fall and winter.”
Effie opened her eyes, but she comprehended the strategy of the new teacher, and that was more than Mrs. Dryer or her husband could have done.
The afternoon that Brayton moved his goods and chattels to the widow’s house, Mrs. Dryer remarked to the doctor:
“You’ll have double responsibility this winter. I see clearly how it’ll be. Mr. Brayton lacks dignity. He’ll have no control, whatever. Those boys’ll ride right over him. I heard him speak to that Fuller boy to-day, and he actually touched his hat to him, just as if he’d been a trustee.”
Dr. Dryer groaned, but he searched his mind in vain for a recollection of the occasion when George Brayton had exhibited that amount of reverence for the principal of the Academy.
“I shall undoubtedly be compelled to exercise especial vigilance,” he calmly replied, “but I consider myself competent to confront the emergency.”
Splendid words they were, and the longest that occurred to him at the moment, but his better-half, that is, his “third,” was hardly comforted, even while she admired.