The monotonous “click click” of Miss Abigail’s needles made me nervous after a while, and finally drove me out of the sitting-room into the kitchen, where Kitty caused me to laugh by saying Miss Abigail thought that what I needed was “a good dose of hot-drops,” a remedy she was forever ready to administer in all emergencies.  If a boy broke his leg, or lost his mother, I believe Miss Abigail would have given him hot-drops.

Kitty laid herself out to be entertaining.  She told me several funny Irish stories, and described some of the odd people living in the town; but, in the midst of her comicalities, the tears would involuntarily ooze out of my eyes, though I was not a lad much addicted to weeping.  Then Kitty would put her arms around me, and tell me not to mind it—­that it wasn’t as if I had been left alone in a foreign land with no one to care for me, like a poor girl whom she had once known.  I brightened up before long, and told Kitty all about the Typhoon and the old seaman, whose name I tried in vain to recall, and was obliged to fall back on plain Sailor Ben.

I was glad when ten o’clock came, the bedtime for young folks, and old folks too, at the Nutter House.  Alone in the hallchamber I had my cry out, once for all, moistening the pillow to such an extent that I was obliged to turn it over to find a dry spot to go to sleep on.

My grandfather wisely concluded to put me to school at once.  If I had been permitted to go mooning about the house and stables, I should have kept my discontent alive for months.  The next morning, accordingly, he took me by the hand, and we set forth for the academy, which was located at the farther end of the town.

The Temple School was a two-story brick building, standing in the centre of a great square piece of land, surrounded by a high picket fence.  There were three or four sickly trees, but no grass, in this enclosure, which had been worn smooth and hard by the tread of multitudinous feet.  I noticed here and there small holes scooped in the ground, indicating that it was the season for marbles.  A better playground for baseball couldn’t have been devised.

On reaching the schoolhouse door, the Captain inquired for Mr. Grimshaw.  The boy who answered our knock ushered us into a side-room, and in a few minutes—­during which my eye took in forty-two caps hung on forty-two wooden pegs—­Mr. Grimshaw made his appearance.  He was a slender man, with white, fragile hands, and eyes that glanced half a dozen different ways at once—­a habit probably acquired from watching the boys.

After a brief consultation, my grandfather patted me on the head and left me in charge of this gentleman, who seated himself in front of me and proceeded to sound the depth, or, more properly speaking, the shallowness, of my attainments.  I suspect my historical information rather startled him.  I recollect I gave him to understand that Richard III was the last king of England.