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 or the semaphore to the locomotive engineer, Miss Susie Berrith was to my youthful retainer. He candidly stated that she had taught him all he knew, and, I suspected from the amount and diversity of his information, close to the measure of all she knew herself. She had referred to him as her Sunday-school scholar, but it seemed, what I had not known before, that he was her every-day pupil, as well. The nearest school-house was four miles distant —a bitter matter in snow-time — and so Darius and four of his similarly situated fellows went regularly to the Berrith residence for their schooling. I felt that it was very singular that Miss Berrith had never mentioned this to me. “Dere’s all kines er people,” said Darius Doane, “an’ den, der’s Miss Berrit’. She’d oughter git marrit.”

“In the name of mercy, why?” I demanded. The times were certainly piteously askew when babes of twelve thus took the marriage question on their tongues!