WAUPACA RECORD

January 6, 1898

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Miss L.G. Phillips.

The course of a teacher in some rural schools is not unmarked by pitfalls. One young lady thus engaged tells an amusing story of the anxiety her conduct unwittingly caused the mother of one of her pupils. The pupil in question was an overgrown and stupid but well behaved boy of 19, named Tobias Hodge. He was older by several years, and far bigger than any other pupil in the school, but he was not so well advanced in his studies as some of the younger ones. He seemed so anxious to learn that the teacher often got him to remain after school for the purpose of assisting him in his studies. Their homeward way lay over the same road, and they would walk home together after the hard places in the lessons had been made easy for Tobias.

Often in the morning, when she left home to go to the schoolhouse, the teacher would find the boy waiting for her, and she tactfully gave him several lessons in politeness, such as lifting his hat to her and other ladies, and assisting her over bad places in the road. She was beginning to feel that she might really make something out of Tobias, when her efforts on his behalf received a sudden check by the receipt of the following note from his widowed mother:

MADAM – I just want to say that I have heered how you are carryin on with my son Tobe, an all I got to say is that he ain’t of marryin age, an I am his garden. A word to the wise out to be suffishent. – LONDON TELEGRAPH.