Those sheds were great places for the conclaves of the “boys” of Ogleport, but their larks rarely carried them, even in broad daylight, beyond or through or over the shattered picket fence of the graveyard.
Not that they were particularly superstitious, but then, as a general thing, they deemed it just as well to “go around,” and it was, indeed, a queer place to get into alone after sundown.
If, however, the boys had any reverence for the bit of land where the village buried its dead, they had none whatever for the big, white building where they were themselves compelled to bury so much of the valuable time they might otherwise have usefully employed in fishing, hunting, and other matters of equal importance.
The benches of the several rooms, not excepting those of the “chapel” or lecture-room in the rear, or the great hall in the second story, the frames of the doors, the pine wainscoting, the desks, every reachable piece of wood about the whole concern was notched and scarred by the sharp and busy knives of the boys of Ogleport.
More than one busy man, there and elsewhere, if he ever came back again on a visit, could trace his deeply-cut initials, three times painted over, among the innumerable scars of that institution of learning.
Zeb Fuller’s generation had done at least their share of this particular kind of improvement, and the oldest inhabitants of the village freely declared their opinion that there had never been such a lot of unreclaimed young savages since the Indians cleared out.
Perhaps they were right, and then again perhaps they had forgotten something, but the boys did not trouble their minds much about it, either way.
Still, it was a great comfort to the Rev. Dr. Solomon Dryer to meet with so liberal an amount of human sympathy, especially as it had helped him that summer to carry into effect his design of securing an additional assistant.
There had always been Mrs. Ross with two or three ambitious young ladies to help her in the male department, and a long and variegated line of “young men preparing for college,” who had acted for the time being as “tutors” under Dr. Dryer, but never before had the Academy trustees ventured on the outlay required for a full-grown, thoroughly educated, competent man to do the doctor’s heavy work for him.
Perhaps a certain feeling of jealousy on the doctor’s part; a dread of having any second person so near his own throne of authority, had had something to do with it; but now there had appeared a new element of danger which he found himself compelled to meet.