And then there was Miss Slack, and Miss Trotter, and Mr. Skimpole (a lineal descendant of the urbane Harold), and Mr. Looseley, and Mr. Rattler, and Striker, and Bluffer, and Smiley; all these took a hand at the mill that was rolling out the character of “Dodd” Weaver, and there are marks of their varied crankings upon him to this day.

One year he fell into the hands of old Mrs. Heighten.  She was a widow who had been rich, but was now poor, and who had a place in the schools because she needed it.  She was so much like all the rest of this sort that she need not be further described, and were it not for one characteristic she should remain in oblivion, so far as this record is concerned.  But for this I must have her out.

She was poor and really a proud beggar of public charity, yet she was of such genteel and lofty birth and bearing that teaching was a bore to her.  She really despised and hated her pupils, and they returned these sentiments with interest.  There was always rebellion in her room, and to suppress it she resorted to all sorts of penalties and punishments.  She used to make pupils stand on the floor and extend an arm on a level with the shoulder, and so hold a book till it seemed as if the arm would break off.  She herself stood by with a pin in her hand, meanwhile, holding it at a slight distance below the extended arm and sticking it into the hand of the suffering one if the aching member were lowered an inch.

O Dante, you didn’t begin to exhaust the possibilities of outrageous punishments in all you saw in the infernal regions.  Old Mrs. Heighten could give you several points that you never dreamed of, and not tax her powers of ingenuity very much either.

Yet “Dodd” worked the genius of this respectable old beldame to the very verge of bankruptcy.  She tried device after device upon the boy, till at last it got to be a kind of race between the two as to which should win.  The old lady had no genuine interest in the welfare of her pupil.  He annoyed her and she wanted to rid herself of the annoyance.  That is a simple statement of the case from her side.  As for “Dodd,” he delighted in tormenting her as he would in teasing a snake.  To be sure there was danger in the sport, but boys are fond of danger, especially if it promises fun.

So the days wore on, till at last the case became unbearable, and “Dodd” was “suspended.”  Oh! but that was hard on the boy!  It hurt him terribly!  The suspension came when the skating of the winter was the very best, and “Dodd” skated the vacation away, and felt, Oh, so badly about being out of school!