On again recovering my health, I began to look about for something to do,
and hearing of a vacant school east of Falmouth, and about four miles from
my father's, I made application and was employed to teach it. It is with
pride (which, after the record of so many failures, I trust will readily be
pardoned) that I chronicle the fact that from the beginning to the end of
the term I never tasted liquor. I look back to those months as the happiest
of my life. I did what is seldom done, for in addition to keeping sober
(which I believe most teachers do without an effort), I gave complete
satisfaction to every parent, and pleased and made friends with every
scholar (a thing, I believe, that most teachers do not do). Very bright and
vivid in memory are those days, made more radiant by contrast with the
darkness and degradation which lie before and after them. As I dwell upon
them a ray of their calm light steals into my soul, and the faces of my
loved scholars come out of the intervening darkness and smile upon me,
until, for a brief moment, I forget my barred window, the mad-house, and my
desolation, and fancy that I am again with them.
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