“Why should that strippling say I could teach the children more if I kept abreast of the times?” he muttered to himself.  “He probably thinks I’m too old, though he doesn’t say it in plain words.”  Tyberg could not get over his exasperation, and as soon as he reached home he told it all to his wife.

“Why should you mind the sexton’s chatter?” said the wife. “’Youth is elastic, but age is solid,’ as the saying goes.  You’re excellent teachers both of you.”

“Little good your saying it!” he grunted.  “Others will think what they like just the same.”

The old man went about for days looking so glum that he quite distressed his wife.

“Can’t you show them they are in the wrong?” she finally suggested.

“How show them?  What do you mean?”

“I mean that if you know your pupils to be just as clever as the sexton’s—­”

“Of course they are!” he struck in.

“—­then you must see that your pupils and his get together for a test examination.”

The old man pretended not to be interested in her proposition, but all the same it caught his fancy.  And some days later the sexton received a letter from him wherein he proposed that the children of both schools be allowed to test their respective merits.

The sexton was not averse to this, of course, only he wanted to have the contest held some time during the Christmas holidays, so that it could be made a festive occasion for the children.

“That was a happy conceit,” thought he.  “Now I shan’t have to review any lessons this term.”

Nor was it necessary.  It was positively amazing the amount of reading and studying that went on just then in the two schools!

The contest was held the evening of the day after Christmas.  The schoolroom had been decorated for the occasion with spruce trees, on which shone all the church candles left over from the Christmas Matins, and there were apples enough to give every child two apiece.  It was whispered about that the parents and guardians who had come to listen to the children would be served with coffee and cakes.  The chief attraction, however, was the big contest.

On one side of the room sat the soldier’s pupils, on the other the sexton’s.  And now it was for the children to defend their teachers’ reputations.  Schoolmaster Tyberg had to examine the sexton’s pupils, and the sexton the Tyberg pupils.  Any questions that could not he answered by the one school were to be taken up by the other.  Each question had to be duly recorded so that the judges would be able to decide which school was the better.

The sexton opened the contest.  He proceeded rather cautiously at first, but when he found that he had a lot of clever children to deal with he went at them harder and harder.  The Tyberg pupils were so well grounded they did not let a single quizz get by them.

Then came old man Tyberg’s turn at questioning the sexton’s pupils.