50 NEW HAMPSHIRE AGRICULTURE. 



towns. Company meetings were warned by verbal notices 

 given to members present at the Concord meeting-house on 

 some Sunday previous to the day appointed therefor, and by 

 them forwarded to those absent. 



Some of these, living at long distances from the place of pa- 

 rade, which was generally Concord, made their appearance the 

 evening before the day of training, and found at the home of their 

 captain a soldier's welcome to themselves and horses. For the 

 latter sleeping accommodations were always abundant. For 

 their riders, these did not always suffice. But if the number of 

 beds in the house fell short, the late comers took to the floors 

 and, wrapped in their blankets, " endured hardness as good 

 soldiers." 



Before their marriage, the Captain's wife had been a school 

 teacher and may have increased his interest in the welfare of 

 the rising generation. However that may be, soon after he had 

 relinquished the celibacy which had too long enthralled him, 

 he was directed by his district to procure the erection of a new 

 school house, to supersede the low, wooden structure in which 

 his wife had painfully labored to enlighten the children com- 

 mitted to her tutelage. 



In due time, a two-story, brick building, surmounted by a 

 tin-covered belfry of graceful outlines and fully supplied with 

 the best furniture then in use, challenged the admiration of all 

 lovers of good schools and school-houses. It was by far the 

 best building of its kind in the county and few, if any, sur- 

 passed elsewhere in the state. 



Some members of the district, who thought more of their 

 taxes than of their children's welfare, complained of its costli- 

 ness and objected to the payment of the outstanding bills in- 

 curred in its construction. During this ferment, the house was 

 opened for use and the late Judge George W. Nesmith, then a 

 student of Dartmouth college, was employed to teach the win- 

 ter school. 



One day, as he has said, he was met upon the street by Cap- 

 tain Walker who asked him for the loan of the school-house 

 key. He at once handed it to him, supposing that entrance 

 was wanted for the completion of something which had been 

 left unfinished and that it would be seasonably returned to him. 



