CHAPTER III

I At first nobody thought Mr. Carpenter’s illness serious. He had had a good many attacks of rheumatism in recent years, laying him up for a few days. Then he could hobble back to work, as grim and sarcastic as ever, with a new edge to his tongue. In Mr. Carpenter’s opinion teaching in Blair Water school was not what it had been. Nothing there now, he said, but rollicking, soulless young nonentities. Not a soul in the school who could pronounce February or Wednesday. “I’m tired trying to make soup in a sieve,” he s…