“I’m the teacher, gentlemen—­can any one show me the schoolhouse?”

The miserable Mose looked ghastly, and tottered.  A suspicion of a wink graced the judge’s eye, but he exclaimed in a stern, low tone:  “Square job, an’ no backin’,” upon which Mose took to his heels and the Placerville trail.

The judge had been a married man, so he promptly answered: 

“I’ll take yer thar, mum, ez soon ez I git yer baggage.”

“Thank you,” said the teacher; “that valise under the seat is all.”

The judge extracted a small valise marked “Huldah Brown,” offered his arm, and he and the teacher walked off before the astonished crowd as naturally as if the appearance of a modest-looking young lady was an ordinary occurrence at the Flat.

The stage refilled, and rattled away from the dumb and staring crowd, and the judge returned.

“Well, boys,” said he, “yer got to marry two women, now, to stop that school, an’ you’ll find this un more particler than the widder.  I just tell yer what it is about that school—­it’s a-goin’ to go on, spite uv any jackasses that wants it broke up; an’ any gentleman that’s insulted ken git satisfaction by—­”

“Who wants it broke up, you old fool?” demanded Toledo, a man who had been named after the city from which he had come, and who had been from the first one of the fiercest opponents of the school.  “I move the appointment uv a committee of three to wait on the teacher, see if the school wants anything money can buy, take up subscriptions to git it, an’ lay out any feller that don’t come down with the dust when he’s went fur.”

[Illustration:  Toledo and the COMMITTEEMEN’S visit to the SOHOOLTEACHER.]

“Hurray!” “Bully!” “Good!” “Sound!” “Them’s the talk!” and other sympathetic expressions, were heard from the members of the late anti-school party.

The judge, who, by virtue of age, was the master of ceremonies and general moderator of the camp, very promptly appointed a committee, consisting of Toledo and two miners, whose attire appeared the most respectable in the place, and instructed them to wait on the schoolmarm, and tender her the cordial support of the miners.

Early the next morning the committee called at the schoolhouse, attached to which were two small rooms in which teachers were expected to keep house.

The committee found the teacher “putting to rights” the schoolroom.  Her dress was tucked up, her sleeves rolled, her neck hidden by a bright handkerchief, and her hair “a-blowin’ all to glory,” as Toledo afterward expressed it.  Between the exertion, the bracing air, and the excitement caused by the newness of everything, Miss Brown’s pleasant face was almost handsome.

“Mornin’, marm,” said Toledo, raising a most shocking hat, while the remaining committee-men expeditiously ranged themselves behind him, so that the teacher might by no chance look into their eyes.