I ain't pertickeler. They've
been coaxed and they've been whipped, but they've always made out to mind
by doin' pretty much as they was a mind to. They're smart boys, too," she
added, with sincere pride; "but they don't take to larnin'. I never see
sich boys. Ye can't git no larnin' into 'em no way. They'd rather be
whipped than go to school. Sim had a man to work on our cranberry bog,
and he found out that he was first-rate in 'rithmetic, this man was, and
so Sim, says he,--I'll give ye the same ye git on the bog,' says he, 'to
stay up to the house and larn my boys 'rithmetic,' says he; and the man,
he tried it, and in the course of a day or two, he come around to Sim,
and wanted to know if he couldn't go back to clarin' bog again."
Emily took in the broadly contemplative expression on Grandma Keeler's
benign features, and then winked at me facetiously: "I tell 'em if they
was all like that," said she; "and I guess they be, pretty much, they
might as well be out o' doors as in, and less worryin' to the teacher."
It might have been the third day of my labors in Wallencamp that a man,
having the appearance of a lame giant, entered the school-room, and
advanced to meet me with an imposing dignity of mien.
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