“Perhaps you can get a school to keep over in Harrison, four miles from here,” said his aunt. “I heard they were looking after a teacher.”

“Who shall I go to there to find out?” inquired James.

“I can’t tell you, but your uncle can, when he gets home.”

James learned to whom application should be made, and posted away immediately, and secured the school, at twelve dollars a month, for three months.

“You are fortunate,” said his mother, on hearing his report. “You will be contented to stay now until I get ready to go home. What kind of a school-house have they?”

“A log-house; not much of an affair.”

“How large is the school?”

“About thirty; enough to crowd the building full.”

“When do you begin?”

“Next Monday.”

“Board round, I suppose?”

“Yes; and some of the families are between two and three miles away.”

James commenced his school under favourable auspices, so far as his relations to the pupils were concerned. The conveniences for a school were meagre, and the parents were indifferent to the real wants of their children. Most of them failed to appreciate schooling. It was quite cold weather when the school opened, and there was no fuel provided. Near by the school-house, however, there was coal, in a bank, and James proposed to his pupils to dig fuel therefrom; and, in this way, their fire was run until it became so warm that fire was not needed.

The pupils were not so far advanced as the pupils at Warrensville, but not so rough as those at the Ledge. The neighbourhood was not so far advanced in the arts of civilization as the region with which James had been familiar. Yet he enjoyed school-keeping there; and his connection with the families was pleasant. At the close of the term he received many expressions of affection and confidence from the pupils, and separated from them with the best of feeling.

Mrs. Garfield was ready to return to Orange at the close of the school, nor was James to start on the journey home. After an absence of over three months, James found himself at the homestead with more money than he had when he left.