“Good-day,” said Mr. Jeminy politely, and went out of the store with his pencil.  Left to themselves, Mr. Frye and Mr. Barly began to discuss him.  “Jeminy is growing old,” said Mr. Frye, with a shake of his head.

Mr. Barly, although stupid, liked to be direct.  “I was brought up on plus and minus,” he said, “and I’ve yet to meet the man who can get the better of me.  Now what do you think of that, Mr. Frye?”

Mr. Frye looked up, down, and around; then he began to polish his spectacles.  But he only said, “There’s some good in that.”

“There is indeed,” said Mr. Barly, closing one eye, and nodding his head a number of times.  “There is indeed.  But those days are over, Mr. Frye.  When I was a child I had the fear of God put into me.  It was put into me with a birch rod.  But nowadays, Mr. Frye, the children neglect their sums, and grow up wild as nettles.  I don’t know what they’re learning nowadays.”

And he blew his nose again, as though to say, “What a pity.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Frye, wisely, “there’s no good in that.”

Mr. Jeminy knew his own faults, and what was expected of him:  he was not severe enough.  As he walked home that evening, he said to himself:  “I must be more severe; my pupils tease each other almost under my nose.  To-day as I wrote sums on the black-board, I watched out of the corner of my eye. . . .  Still, a tweaked ear is soon mended.  And it’s true that when they learn to add and subtract, they will do each other more harm.”

The schoolmaster lived in a cottage on the hill overlooking the village.  He lived alone, except for Mrs. Grumble, who kept house for him, and managed his affairs.  Although they were simple, and easy to manage, they afforded her endless opportunities for complaint.  She was never so happy as when nothing suited her.  Then she carried her broom into Mr. Jeminy’s study, and looked around her with a gloomy air.  “No, really, it’s impossible to go on this way,” she would say, and sweep Mr. Jeminy, his books and his papers, out of doors.

There, in the company of Boethius, he often considered the world, and watched, from above, the gradual life of the village.  He heard the occasional tonk of cows on the hillside, the creak of a cart on the road, the faint sound of voices, blown by the wind.  From his threshold he saw the afternoon fade into evening, and night look down across the hills, among the stars.  He saw the lights come out in the valley, one by one through the mist, smelled the fresh, sweet air of evening; and promptly each night at seven, far off and sad, rolling among the hills, he heard the ghostly hooting of the night freight, leaving Milford Junction.

“Here,” he said to himself, “within this circle of hills, is to be found faith, virtue, passion, and good sense.  In this valley youth is not without courage, or age without wisdom.  Yet age, although wise, is full of sorrow.”