I have been shrinking from it, but I won't shrink any longer." "That is the spirit that succeeds, James." James laughed, and in answer quoted Campbell's stirring lines with proper emphasis: "I will victor exult, or in death be laid low, With my face to the field and my feet to the foe." So the time passed till the eventful day dawned on which James was to assume charge of his first school.

He was examined, and adjudged to be qualified to teach; but that he anticipated in advance.
The building is still standing in which James taught his first school.
It is used for quite another purpose now, being occupied as a carriage-house by the thrifty farmer who owns the ground upon which it stands.

The place where the teacher's desk stood, behind which the boy stood as preceptor, is now occupied by two stalls for carriage-horses.
The benches which once contained the children he taught have been removed to make room for the family carriage, and the play-ground is now a barnyard.

The building sits upon a commanding eminence known as Ledge Hill, and overlooks a long valley winding between two lines of hills.
This description is furnished by the same correspondent of the Boston _Herald_ to whom I am already indebted for Henry Boynton's reminiscences contained in the last chapter.
When James came in sight, and slowly ascended the hill in sight of the motley crew of boys and girls who were assembled in front of the school-house on the first morning of the term, it was one of the most trying moments of his life.

He knew instinctively that the boys were anticipating the fun in store for them in the inevitable conflict which awaited him, and he felt constrained and nervous.