“No one here is to shout or talk, or read in a loud voice.  If any of you want to speak to me you must hold up your hand, so.  When I nod you can come to me.  If you don’t do everything I tell you, you will be slapped on the hand, or somewhere else, with this strap.”

He held it up to view.  It was eighteen inches long, three inches broad, heavy, and pliant.  The sight of it made Tommy Traddles and many other little boys and girls good all at once; but Joseph and Hugh went back to their seats grinning at one another.  Mr. Foy had often talked that way, but it always came to nothing.

Hugh was the hero of the school, or rather the leading villain.  In about two minutes he called out, “Please, sir, Josh Blake is a-shoving me with his elbow.”

“Hugh Boyle, come this way.”  He came.

“Now, Hugh, I told you that there must be no speaking or reading aloud.  Of course you forgot what I said; you should have put up your hand.”

In the course of the day Hugh received two slaps, then three, then four.  He began to fear the strap as well as to feel it.  That was the beginning of wisdom.

Nancy Toomey was naughty, and was sent into a corner.  She was sulky and rebellious when told to return to her seat.  She said, in the hearing of Tommy Traddles, “The master is a carroty-headed crawler.”

It is as well to remark that Philip’s hair was red; a man with red hair is apt to be of a hasty temper, and, as a matter of fact, I had seen Philip’s fist fly out very rapidly on several occasions before he began to practise the twelve virtues.

Tommy put up his hand, and, at a nod, went up to the master.

“Well, Tommy, what is the matter?”

“Please, sir, Nancy Toomey has been calling you a carroty-headed crawler.”

Tommy’s eyebrows were raised, his eyes and mouth wide open.  Philip looked over his head at Nancy, whose face was on fire.  He slowly repeated: 

“Nancy Toomey has been calling me a carroty-headed crawler, has she?”

“Yes, sir.  That’s what she called you.  I heard her.”

“Well, Tommy, go to your seat like a good boy.  Nancy won’t call names any more.”

In a little more than a week perfect discipline and good order prevailed in the school.

A BUSH HERMIT.

It is not good for man to be alone, but Philip became a hermit.  Half a mile from the school and the main road there was an empty slab hut roofed with shingles.  It was on the top of a long sloping hill, which afforded a beautiful view over the lake and the distant hills.  Half an acre of garden ground was fenced in with the hut, and it was part of the farm of a man from Hampshire, England, who lived with his wife near the main road.  A man from Hampshire is an Englishman, and should speak English; but, when Philip tried to make a bargain about the hut, he could not understand the Hampshire language,