At last the editor remarked, with becoming modesty, that he was himself of no account at figures, but Mr. Sims would put me through the arithmetic.  Mr. Sims was the compositor, and an Englishman; he put me through tenderly.

When the examination was finished, I felt like a convicted impostor, and was prepared to resume work on the undershot water-wheel, but the two professors took pity on me, and certified in writing that I was qualified to keep school.

Then the editor remarked that the retiring teacher, Mr. Randal, had advertised in the ‘True Democrat’ his ability to teach the Latin language; but, unfortunately, Father Ingoldsby had offered himself as a first pupil; Mr. Randal never got another, and all his Latin oozed out.  On this timely hint I advertised my ability to teach the citizens of Joliet not only Latin, but Greek, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.  My advertisement will be found among the files of the ‘True Democrat’ of the year 1849 by anyone taking the trouble to look for it.  I had carelessly omitted to mention the English language, but we sometimes get what we don’t ask for, and no less than sixteen Germans came to night school to study our tongue.  They were all masons and quarrymen engaged in exporting steps and window sills to the rising city of Chicago.

When Goldsmith tried to earn his bread by teaching English in Holland, he overlooked the fact that it was first necessary for him to learn Low Dutch.  I overlooked the same fact, but it gave me no trouble whatever.  There was no united Germany then, and my pupils disagreed continually about the pronunciation of their own language, which seemed, like that of Babel, intelligible to nobody.  I composed their quarrels by confining their minds to English solely, and harmony was restored each night by song.

The school-house was a one-storey frame building on the second plateau in West Joliet, and was attended by about one hundred scholars.  In the rear was a shallow lagoon, fenced on one side by a wall of loose rocks, infested with snakes.  The track to the cemetery was near, and it soon began to be in very frequent use.  One day during recess the boys had a snake hunt, and they tied their game in one bunch by the heads with string, and suspended them by the wayside.  I counted them, and there were twenty-seven snakes in the bunch.

The year ’49 was the ‘annus mirabilis’ of the great rush for gold across the plains, and it was also an ‘annus miserabilis’ on account of the cholera.  In three weeks fourteen hundred waggons bound for California crossed one of the bridges over the canal.  I was desirous of joining the rush, but was, as usual, short of cash, and I had to stay at Joliet to earn my salary.  I met the editor of the ’True Democrat’ nearly every day carrying home a bucket of water from the Aux Plaines river.  He did his own chores.  He sent two young men who wished to become teachers to my school to graduate.  One was named O’Reilly, lately