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When school-hours were over he was even the companion and
playmate of the larger boys, and on holiday afternoons would
convoy some of the smaller ones home who happened to have pretty
sisters or good housewives for mothers noted for the comforts of
the cupboard. Indeed it behooved him to keep on good terms with
his pupils. The revenue arising from his school was small, and
would have been scarcely sufficient to furnish him with daily
bread, for he was a huge feeder, and, though lank, had the
dilating powers of an anaconda; but to help out his maintenance
he was, according to country custom in those parts, boarded and
lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children he instructed.
With these he lived successively a week at a time, thus going the
rounds of the neighborhood with all his worldly effects tied up
in a cotton handkerchief.
That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his
rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a
grievous burden and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various
ways of rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted
the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms,
helped to make hay, mended the fences, took the horses to water,
drove the cows from pasture, and cut wood for the winter fire.
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