I
only said I'd tried it."
"You give me to understand that the teacher was dead now," returned
Elmer severely.
"He is," cried Henry.
"And you claim you done it."
"I done it," shouted Mr. Holmes, pounding the floor with his cane. "I
done it! You think I'm a murderer? Why, old Gilbert Spoonholler was
ninety-seven year old when he went away. He was only forty when him
and me had it out."
"That's different," said Elmer calmly. "I understood from your
original account that he died in battle."
"I tho't so too, Henery," put in Isaac Bolum. "You misled me,
complete. 'Here,' says I, 'at last I have met a man who has licked the
teacher.' And all the time you was tellin' about it, we was admirin'
you--Joe Nummler and me--and now we finds Gil Spoonholler lived
fifty-seven year after that terrible struggle."
"I can't just fetch my memory back to that particular incident,
Henery," said Josiah, "but my recollection is that Gil Spoonholler held
the school-house agin all comers, and that's sayin' a good deal, for we
was tough as hickory when we was young.
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