It was hard, hard work.  There was nobody to help the new teacher; he wrought alone; that the teacher always did.  The days were days of constant, unintermitted labour; the nights were jaded and spiritless.  After spelling a great deal in the course of the day, and making up an indefinite number of sums in addition and multiplication, Winthrop found his stomach was gone for Latin and Virgil.  Ears and eyes and mind were sick of the din of repetitions, wearied with confusions of thought not his own; he was fain to let his own rest.  The children “got on,” the parents said, “first-rate;” but the poor teacher was standing still.  Week passed after week, and each Saturday night found him where he was the last.  He had less time than on the farm.  Fresh from the plough, he could now and then snatch a half hour of study to some purpose; there was no “fresh from the school.”  Besides all which, he still found himself or fancied himself needed by his father, and whenever a pinch of work called for it he could not hold back his hand.

“How does it go, Winthrop?” said his mother when she saw him wearily sitting down one summer night.

“It doesn’t go at all, mother.”

“I was afraid that it would be so.”

“How does what go?” said Asahel.

“The school.”

“How does it go?”

“Upon my head; and I am tired of carrying it.”

“Don’t you like being school-teacher?”

“No.”

“I do,” said Asahel.

“I wouldn’t stay in it, Winthrop,” said his mother.

“I will not mamma, —­ only till winter.  I’ll manage it so long.”

Eight months this experiment was tried, and then Winthrop came back to the farm.  Eight months thrown away! he sadly said to himself.  He was doubly needed at home now, for Mr. Landholm had again been elected to the Legislature; and one of the first uses of Winthrop’s freedom was to go with his father to Vantassel and drive the wagon home again.

One thing was gained by this journey.  In Vantassel, Winthrop contrived to possess himself of a Greek lexicon and a Graeca Majora, and also a Greek grammar, though the only one he could get that suited his purse was the Westminster grammar, in which the alternatives of Greek were all Latin. That did not stagger him.  He came home rich in his classical library, and very resolved to do something for himself this winter.

The day after his return from Vantassel, just as they had done supper, there was a knock at the front door.  Winthrop went to open it.  There he found a man, tall and personable, well-dressed though like a traveller, with a little leathern valise in his hand.  Winthrop had hardly time to think he did not look like an American, when his speech confirmed it.

“How-do-you-do?” he said, using each word with a ceremony which shewed they were not denizens of his tongue.  “I am wanting to make some reserche in dis country, and I was directet here.”