Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/195

 THE MASTER AND SCHOOL. 151 upper chamber, with a long, rough table in the centre of the rcom,and rude benches ranged around its sides, and elevated according to the size of the boys and girls who are to occupy them. The master holds the key of the storehouse of knowl- edge in his hands, and with wise care unlocks and brings out his treasures as his pupils seem to need. The ciphering book is their slate, their black-board, and their writing-book, and the good, round, full hand of that elder day, and the artistic skill of those early performers in penmanship often put in the shade the efforts of more favored ones to-day. For six days in the week the master and pupils ply their school tasks, and we may well wonder when and where our good parson finds time and strength to prepare the manna for feeding his flock on Sunday, unless he has already learned that there are two ends to every sermon barrel. From Captain Willett's, when his service ends, he rides to Kickemuit, to Hugh Cole's, where a similar two months of labor in teaching follow, and from thence back home to New Meadow Neck, where he finishes his annual round, and draws on the raters of the town for his well-earned salary. Some of his parishoners, however, think this forty pounds a full equivalent for his ministerial as well as pedagogical services, and when the con- tribution box comes round on Sunday morning, they some- how fail to feel the force of its persuasive presence. Sufilice to say, good Parson Myles, like many other pastors and pedagogues, did not grow rich from his people. But in that itinerant school were taught and learned the graces of good manners, the master forgetting not the sage advice of an ancient sage who spoiled the rod to spare the child. The boys are here preparing themselves as deputies to the Great and General Court at Boston, as constables, grand-jurymen, selectmen, surveyors, town clerks, tithing- men, schoolmasters, fence-viewers, hog reeves, etc., etc., and the various other duties and offices of civil society. Among them is Samuel Myles, the son of the pastor, who entered Harvard College from our grammar school in 1680, grad- uated in 1684, received the title of A. M., was appointed as