“I can’t just fetch my memory back to that particular incident, Henery,” said Josiah, “but my recollection is that Gil Spoonholler held the school-house agin all comers, and that’s sayin’ a good deal, for we was tough as hickory when we was young.”

“The modern boys is soft,” Aaron Kallaberger declared.  “They regards the teacher in a friendlier light than they used to.  They are weakenin’.  The military sperrit’s dyin’ out.  The spectacle is conquerin’ the sword.”

[Illustration:  Aaron Kallaberger.]

This was too direct a slap at Elmer Spiker to pass unnoticed; Elmer was too old an arguer to use any ponderous weapon in return.  He even smiled as he punctuated his sentences with his battered spectacle-case.

“You never said a truer word, Aaron.  It allus was true.  It allus will be true.  It’s just as true to-day as when Henery Holmes tackled old Gilbert Spoonholler, as when Isaac Bolum yander argyed with Luke Lampson that five times eleven was forty-five; as when you refused to admit to the same kind teacher that Harrisburg was the capital of Pennsylwany.”

“And as to-day when William Belkis—­” Theophilus Jones was acting strangely.  He was bowing politely at me.

I was mystified.  Why at a time like this I should be treated as a subject of so much distinction was a puzzle, and I was about to demand an explanation, when Josiah Nummler interrupted.

“It’s true,” he said.  “Teachers ain’t changed and the boys ain’t changed.  I’m eighty year old within a week, and all my life I’ve heard boys blowin’ about how they was goin’ to lick the teacher, and I’ve heard old men tell how they done it years and years before—­but I’ve never seen an eye-witness—­what I wants is an eye-witness.”

“You’ve been talkin’ to Elmer Spiker,” said Henry Holmes, plaintively.  “He’s convinced you.  He’d convince anybody of anything.  He’s got me so dad-twisted I can’t mind no more whether I went to school even.”

“You never showed no signs, Henery.”  Isaac Bolum spoke very quietly.

“I guess you otter know it as well as anybody,” Henry retorted angrily.  “Your ma was allus askin’ me to take care of you, and you was a nuisance, too, you was, Isaac.  You was allus a-blubberin’ and a-swallerin’ somethin’.  You mind the time you swallered my copper cent, don’t you?  You mind the fuss your ma made to my ma about it, don’t you?  Why, she formulated regular charges that I ’tempted to pizon you—­she did, and——­”

“Don’t rake up them old, old sores,” said Josiah Nummler soothingly, “Ike’ll give you back your copper cent, Henery.”

“All Ike’s property to-day ain’t as val’able to me now as that cent was then,” Mr. Holmes answered solemnly.  “It was the val’ablest cent I ever owned.  I never expect to have another I’d hate so to see palpitatin’ in Isaac Bolum’s th’oat between his Adam’s apple and his collar-band.”

“We’re gittin’ away from the subject,” said Josiah.  “You’re draggin’ up a personal quarrel between you and Isaac Bolum, when we was discussin’ the great problem that confronts every scholar in his day—­that of thrashin’ the teacher.”