THE PROMOTION OF JENNIE
If Jennie Woodruff was the cause of Jim Irwin's sudden irruption into the
educational field by her scoffing "Humph!" at the idea of a farm-hand's
ever being able to marry, she also gave him the opportunity to knock down
the driver of the big motor-car, and perceptibly elevate himself in the
opinion of the neighborhood, while filling his own heart with something
like shame.
The fat man who had said "Cut it out" to his driver, was Mr. Charles
Dilly, a business man in the village at the extreme opposite corner of the
county. His choice of the Woodruff District as a place for motoring had a
secret explanation. I am under no obligation to preserve the secret. He
came to see Colonel Woodruff and Jennie. Mr. Dilly was a candidate for
county treasurer, and wished to be nominated at the approaching county
convention. In his part of the county lived the county superintendent--a
candidate for renomination. He was just a plain garden or field county
superintendent of schools, no better and no worse than the general
political run of them, but he had local pride enlisted in his cause, and
was a good politician.
Mr. Dilly was in the Woodruff District to build a backfire against this
conflagration of the county superintendent. He expected to use Jennie
Woodruff to light it withal. That is, while denying that he wished to make
any deal or trade--every candidate in every convention always says
that--he wished to say to Miss Woodruff and her father, that if Miss
Woodruff would permit her name to be used for the office of county
superintendent of schools, a goodly group of delegates could be selected
in the other corner of the county who would be glad to reciprocate any
favors Mr. Charles J. Dilly might receive in the way of votes for county
treasurer with ballots for Miss Jennie Woodruff for superintendent of
schools.
Mr. Dilly never inquired as to Miss Woodruff's abilities as an educator.
That would have been eccentric. Miss Woodruff never asked herself if she
knew anything about rural education which especially fitted her for the
task; for was she not a popular and successful teacher--and was not that
enough? Mr. Dilly merely asked himself if Miss Woodruff's name could
command strength enough to eliminate the embarrassing candidate in his
part of the county and leave the field to himself. Miss Woodruff asked
herself whether the work would not give her a pleasanter life than did
teaching, a better salary, and more chances to settle herself in life. So
are the officials chosen who supervise and control the education of the
farm children of America.
This secret mission to effect a political trade accounted for Mr. Dilly's
desire that his driver should "cut out" the controversy with Newton
Bronson, and the personal encounter with Jim Irwin--and it may account for
Jim's easy victory in his first and only physical encounter. An office
seeker could scarcely afford to let his friend or employee lick a member
of a farmers' road gang. It certainly explains the fact that when Jim
Irwin started home from putting out his team the day after his first call
on the Simms family, Jennie was waiting at the gate to be congratulated on
her nomination.
"I congratulate you," said Jim.
"Thanks," said Jennie, extending her hand.
"I hope you're elected," Jim went on, holding the hand; "but there's no
doubt of that."
"They say not," replied Jennie; "but father says I must go about and let
the people see me. He believes in working just as if we didn't have a big
majority for the ticket."
"A woman has an advantage of a man in such a contest," said Jim; "she can
work just as hard as he can, and at the same time profit by the fact that
it's supposed she can't."
"I need all the advantage I possess," said Jennie, "and all the votes. Say
a word for me when on your pastoral rounds."
"All right," said Jim, "what shall I say you'll do for the schools?"
"Why," said Jennie, rather perplexed, "I'll be fair in my examinations of
teachers, try to keep the unfit teachers out of the schools, visit schools
as often as I can, and--why, what does any good superintendent do?"
"I never heard of a good county superintendent," said Jim.
"Never heard of one--why, Jim Irwin!"
"I don't believe there is any such thing," persisted Jim, "and if you do
no more than you say, you'll be off the same piece as the rest. Your
system won't give us any better schools than we have--of the old sort--and
we need a new kind."
"Oh, Jim, Jim! Dreaming as of yore! Why can't you be practical! What do
you mean by a new kind of rural school?"
"A truly-rural rural school," said Jim.
"I can't pronounce it," smiled Jennie, "to say nothing of understanding
it. What would your tralalooral rural school do?"
"It would be correlated with rural life," said Jim.
"How?"
"It would get education out of the things the farmers and farmers' wives
are interested in as a part of their lives."
"What, for instance?"
"Dairying, for instance, in this district; and soil management; and
corn-growing; and farm manual training for boys; and sewing, cooking and
housekeeping for the girls--and caring for babies!"
Jennie looked serious, after smothering a laugh.
"Jim," said she, "you're going to have a hard enough time to succeed in
the Woodruff school, if you confine yourself to methods that have been
tested, and found good."
"But the old methods," urged Jim, "have been tested and found bad. Shall I
keep to them?"
"They have made the American people what they are," said Jennie. "Don't be
unpatriotic, Jim."
"They have educated our farm children for the cities," said Jim. "This
county is losing population--and it's the best county in the world."
"Pessimism never wins," said Jennie.
"Neither does blindness," answered Jim. "It is losing the farms their
dwellers, and swelling the cities with a proletariat."
For some time, now, Jim had ceased to hold Jennie's hand; and their
sweetheart days had never seemed farther away.
"Jim," said Jennie, "I may be elected to a position in which I shall be
obliged to pass on your acts as teacher--in an official way, I mean. I
hope they will be justifiable."
Jim smiled his slowest and saddest smile.
"If they're not, I'll not ask you to condone them," said he. "But first,
they must be justifiable to me, Jennie."
"Good night," said Jennie curtly, and left him.
Jennie, I am obliged to admit, gave scant attention to the new career upon
which her old sweetheart seemed to be entering. She was in politics, and
was playing the game as became the daughter of a local politician. The
reader must not by this term get the impression that Colonel Woodruff was
a man of the grafting tricky sort of which we are prone to think when the
term is used. The West has been ruled by just such men as he, and the West
has done rather well, all things considered. Colonel Albert Woodruff went
south with the army as a corporal in 1861, and came back a lieutenant. His
title of colonel was conferred by appointment as a member of the staff of
the governor, long years ago, when he was county auditor. He was not a
rich man, as I may have suggested, but a well-to-do farmer, whose wife did
her own work much of the time, not because the colonel could not afford to
hire "help," but for the reason that "hired girls" were hard to get.
The colonel, having seen the glory of the coming of the Lord in the
triumph of his side in the great war, was inclined to think that all
reform had ceased, and was a political stand-patter--a very honest and
sincere one. Moreover, he was influential enough so that when Mr. Cummins
or Mr. Dolliver came into the county on political errands, Colonel
Woodruff had always been called into conference. He was of the old New
England type, believed very much in heredity, very much in the theory that
whatever is is right, in so far as it has secured money or power.
He had hated General Weaver and his forces; and had sometimes wondered how
a man of Horace Boies' opinions had succeeded in being so good a governor.
He broke with Governor Larrabee when that excellent man had turned against
the great men who had developed Iowa by building the railroads. He was
always in the county convention, and preferred to serve on the committee
on credentials, and leave to others the more showy work of membership in
the committee on resolutions. He believed in education, provided it did
not unsettle things. He had a good deal of Latin and some Greek, and lived
on a farm rather than in a fine house in the county seat because of his
lack of financial ability. As a matter of fact, he had been too strictly
scrupulous to do the things--such as dealing in lands belonging to eastern
speculators who were not advised as to their values, speculating in county
warrants, buying up tax titles with county money, and the like--by which
his fellow-politicians who held office in the early years of the county
had founded their fortunes. A very respectable, honest, American tory was
the colonel, fond of his political sway, and rather soured by the fact
that it was passing from him. He had now broken with Cummins and Dolliver
as he had done years ago with Weaver and later with Larrabee--and this
breach was very important to him, whether they were greatly concerned
about it or not.
Such being her family history, Jennie was something of a politician
herself. She was in no way surprised when approached by party managers on
the subject of accepting the nomination for county superintendent of
schools. Colonel Woodruff could deliver some delegates to his daughter,
though he rather shied at the proposal at first, but on thinking it over,
warmed somewhat to the notion of having a Woodruff on the county pay-roll
once more.