It was five minutes of nine when Allen Barclay, accompanied by Walter, approached the schoolhouse. It was a plain wooden building of two stories, painted white. Beside it was a good-sized playground, on which from a dozen to twenty boys were engaged in a game of ball. As Walter saw the ball flying across the field, impelled by a hard knock from the bat, he felt a strong impulse to join in the game. When a student at the Essex Institute he had played ball a good deal, and was considered quite a superior player. But since his departure he had not joined in a game. Now as he witnessed the game of the Portville boys, he wished himself again a scholar, and a sharer in their fun.

“Do you ever play ball, Mr. Barclay?” he asked.

“No; the physician has forbidden all violent exercise as likely injurious to my health. It increases my cough. For that matter, however, I don’t think I should play if I were able. I tried it sometimes as a boy, but I never succeeded very well. Do you play?”

“I used to play considerably, but for several months I have not touched a bat.”

“There’s the master,” called out one of the players.

“Give me another ball,” said the boy at the bat. “The bell won’t ring just yet.”

So the game continued.

Among those who were watching the game, Walter noticed John Wall. John was more carefully dressed than any of the other boys, many of whom had taken off their coats, and were playing in their shirt sleeves.

“That is John Wall, isn’t it?” asked Walter. “Does he play ball?”

“Not often. He isn’t much of a player. Besides, he doesn’t like to run the risk of soiling his clothes. He is something of a dandy.”

“So I should think. He wore kid gloves the other day in the rain.”

“He is partial to kid gloves. He thinks they distinguish him as the son of a gentleman from his more plebeian companions. But come in, Mr. Howard.”

Walter followed the teacher into the schoolroom. It was about forty feet by fifty in size, and well supplied with desks. The girls sat upon one side, the boys on the other. Some were already in their seats, while others were grouped near the teacher’s desk. They separated on the entrance of Allen Barclay, and repaired to their seats, not without curious glances at Walter.

There was a larger desk for the teacher, with a chair drawn up behind it. There was another chair in the room, which the teacher drew up near his own.

“That is the company chair, Mr. Howard,” said he, smiling. “Will you occupy it?”

“Thank you,” said Walter.

All his associations with schools were in the character of a scholar, and he felt a little out of place. It seemed to him that he ought to be seated at one of the desks.

“Julius, will you ring the bell?” said Mr. Barclay.

A boy of twelve advanced to the teacher’s desk, and took from his hand a large bell, with which he went out into the entry and rang with emphasis, as if he enjoyed it. Soon, in answer to the sonorous summons, came trooping in the boys from the playground, flushed with exercise, some of them drawing on their coats as they walked to their desks. John Wall alone looked as if he were fresh from a bandbox, his hair plastered down with pomatum, and his clothes innocent of dust or wrinkle.

“If he cared less for his appearance he would have a good deal more fun,” thought Walter, judging from a boy’s standpoint.

At last all were in their seats. After the preliminary exercises, the recitations commenced. The first were in arithmetic. Walter listened attentively to the recitations of the different classes, and concluded that he would have no difficulty in instructing any of them. The mathematical teacher at the Essex Institute was well fitted for his duties, and had a remarkably clear and simple way of explaining the leading principles of arithmetic. Allen Barclay, as Walter quickly perceived, was deficient in the art of teaching. He did not know how to explain difficulties in a plain, simple way. Walter felt desirous more than once of coming to his assistance, but of course could not do so.

“I believe I should like to teach,” he thought to himself. “It must be interesting.”

At last the classes in arithmetic finished their recitations.

“You will now have a chance to hear John Wall recite,” said the teacher, in a low voice. Walter’s interest was at once enlisted, partly because he was fond of Latin, and partly because he knew something already of John, and wished to see how he would acquit himself.

“The class in CÆsar,” said the teacher.

John rose slowly from his seat, and, book in hand, advanced pompously to the bench occupied by classes reciting. There was no other scholar so far advanced in Latin, and he looked down from his superior place of knowledge with calm contempt upon his fellow-pupils. His manner, as he advanced to recite, seemed to say, “Look at me! I am going to recite in CÆsar! I am a long way ahead of everybody else in school. They can’t any of them hold a candle to me.”

“Where does your lesson commence, Mr. Wall?” asked the teacher.

“At the beginning of the second book.”

“Very well. You may read and translate.”

John read the first line as follows, pronouncing according to a method of his own, Cum esset CÆsar in citeriore Gallia in hibernis, and furnished the following translation:

“He might be with CÆsar in hither Gaul in the winter.”

“I don’t think that is quite correct, Mr. Wall,” said the teacher.

“It makes good sense,” said John, pertly.

“It doesn’t make the right sense. Cum is not a preposition, and if it were it could not govern CÆsar in the nominative case.”

“I don’t see what else you can make of it.”

“It is a conjunction, and means ‘when,’ ‘CÆsar’ being the subject of the sentence. Then there is another mistake. Hibernis means winter-quarters, not winter. The clause is to be translated, ‘When CÆsar was in winter-quarters in hither Gaul.’ Proceed.”

“Ita uti supra demonstravimus,” continued John; “so have we shown to be used above.”

“Do you think that makes good sense, Mr. Wall?”

“I didn’t quite understand it,” John condescended to acknowledge.

“Uti,” explained the teacher, “is not from the verb utor, as you appear to have taken it, and, if it were, could not be translated passively. It means ‘as’ here. Translate, ‘just as we have shown above.’”

John continued: “Crebri ad eum rumores afferebantur--frequent persons brought rumors to him.”

“I am afraid, Mr. Wall, I must correct you again,” said the teacher. “Crebri agrees with rumores, and the verb is passive. How, then, will you translate the clause?”

“Frequent rumors were brought to him,” answered John, correctly, for a wonder.

“Literisque item Labieni certior fiebat--and letters made the same Labienus more sure.”

“No less than four mistakes, Mr. Wall. I hardly know where to begin to correct you. What part of speech is item?”

“A pronoun.”

“What does it mean?”

“The same.”

“Will you decline it?”

“Item--eatum--item.”

“You need not go on. You have mistaken the word for idem. It means ‘likewise.’ Is literis nominative?”

“No, sir; it is dative.”

“It is ablative, and fiebat cannot be rendered actively. Without specifying all the mistakes, I will translate for you, ‘and likewise was informed by the letters of Labienus,’ Certior fiebat means, literally, ‘was made more certain;’ but we cannot always translate literally.”

It would be tedious to follow John through his blundering recitation. He made fewer mistakes in the passages that succeeded, but it was easy to see that he knew very little Latin. His lesson comprised the whole of the first section, and was on the whole the worst recitation to which Walter had ever listened. He could not help thinking that Mr. Barclay made a mistake in merely correcting the errors, without adding directions by which a repetition of them might be avoided; and he resolved, if John should become his pupil, to drill him thoroughly in the elementary principles of the language.

“What do you think of that recitation?” asked the teacher, in a low voice, as John took his seat.

“Very poor,” answered Walter.

“I am afraid he will never make a Latin scholar. I will now call up the other class in Latin.”

This was a class of beginners, and acquitted itself much more creditably than the student in CÆsar. It might be supposed that John would have been mortified by his mistakes; but it was enough for him that he could report himself as studying CÆsar, and he appeared to think it of no importance how he got along.

Other classes succeeded, and the session at length ended.

“Well, Mr. Howard,” said Mr. Barclay, as they were returning homeward, “do you think you would like to take the school?”

“I will take it if the trustees will accept me,” said Walter, promptly.