JIM TALKS THE WEATHER COLD
"Going to the rally, James?"
Jim had finished his supper, and yearned for a long evening in his attic
den with his cheap literature. But as the district schoolmaster he was to
some extent responsible for the protection of the school property, and
felt some sense of duty as to exhibiting an interest in public affairs.
"I guess I'll have to go, mother," he replied regretfully. "I want to see
Mr. Woodruff about borrowing his Babcock milk tester, and I'll go that
way. I guess I'll go on to the meeting."
He kissed his mother when he went--a habit from which he never deviated,
and another of those personal peculiarities which had marked him as
different from the other boys of the neighborhood. His mother urged his
overcoat upon him in vain--for Jim's overcoat was distinctly a bad one,
while his best suit, now worn every day as a concession to his scholastic
position, still looked passably well after several weeks of schoolroom
duty. She pressed him to wear a muffler about his neck, but he declined
that also. He didn't need it, he said; but he was thinking of the
incongruity of a muffler with no overcoat. It seemed more logical to
assume that the weather was milder than it really was, on that sharp
October evening, and appear at his best, albeit rather aware of the cold.
Jennie was at home, and he was likely to see and be seen of her.
"You can borrow that tester," said the colonel, "and the cows that go with
it, if you can use 'em. They ain't earning their keep here. But how does
the milk tester fit into the curriculum of the school? A decoration?"
"We want to make a few tests of the cows in the neighborhood," answered
Jim. "Just another of my fool notions."
"All right," said the colonel. "Take it along. Going to the speakin'?"
"Certainly, he's going," said Jennie, entering. "This is my meeting,
Jim."
"Surely, I'm going," assented Jim. "And I think I'll run along."
"I wish we had room for you in the car," said the colonel. "But I'm going
around by Bronson's to pick up the speaker, and I'll have a chuck-up
load."
"Not so much of a load as you think," said Jennie. "I'm going with Jim.
The walk will do me good."
Any candidate warms to her voting population just before election; but
Jennie had a special kindness for Jim. He was no longer a farm-hand. The
fact that he was coming to be a center of disturbance in the district, and
that she quite failed to understand how his eccentric behavior could be
harmonized with those principles of teaching which she had imbibed at the
state normal school in itself lifted him nearer to equality with her. A
public nuisance is really more respectable than a nonentity.
She gave Jim a thrill as she passed through the gate that he opened for
her. White moonlight on her white furs suggested purity, exaltation, the
essence of womanhood--things far finer in the woman of twenty-seven than
the glamour thrown over him by the schoolgirl of sixteen.
Jim gave her no thrill; for he looked gaunt and angular in his skimpy,
ready-made suit, too short in legs and sleeves, and too thin for the
season. Yet, as they walked along, Jim grew upon her. He strode on with
immense strides, made slow to accommodate her shorter steps, and
embarrassing her by his entire absence of effort to keep step. For all
that, he lifted his face to the stars, and he kept silence, save for
certain fragments of his thoughts, in dropping which he assumed that she,
like himself, was filled with the grandeur of the sparkling sky, its vast
moon, plowing like an astronomical liner through the cloudlets of a
wool-pack. He pointed out the great open spaces in the Milky Way,
wondering at their emptiness, and at the fact that no telescope can find
stars in them.
They stopped and looked. Jim laid his hard hands on the shoulders of her
white fur collarette.
"What's the use of political meetings," said Jim, "when you and I can
stand here and think our way out, even beyond the limits of our
Universe?"
"A wonderful journey," said she, not quite understanding his mood, but
very respectful to it.
"And together," said Jim. "I'd like to go on a long, long journey with you
to-night, Jennie, to make up for the years since we went anywhere
together."
"And we shouldn't have come together to-night," said Jennie, getting back
to earth, "if I hadn't exercised my leap-year privilege."
She slipped her arm in his, and they went on in a rather intimate way.
"I'm not to blame, Jennie," said he. "You know that at any time I'd have
given anything--anything--"
"And even now," said Jennie, taking advantage of his depleted stock of
words, "while we roam beyond the Milky Way, we aren't getting any votes
for me for county superintendent."
Jim said nothing. He was quite, quite reestablished on the earth.
"Don't you want me to be elected, Jim?"
Jim seemed to ponder this for some time--a period of taking the matter
under advisement which caused Jennie to drop his arm and busy herself with
her skirts.
"Yes," said Jim, at last; "of course I do."
Nothing more was said until they reached the schoolhouse door.
"Well," said Jennie rather indignantly, "I'm glad there are plenty of
voters who are more enthusiastic about me than you seem to be!"
More interesting to a keen observer than the speeches, were the unusual
things in the room itself. To be sure, there were on the blackboards
exercises and outlines, of lessons in language, history, mathematics,
geography and the like. But these were not the usual things taken from
text-books. The problems in arithmetic were calculations as to the feeding
value of various rations for live stock, records of laying hens and
computation as to the excess of value in eggs produced over the cost of
feed. Pinned to the wall were market reports on all sorts of farm
products, and especially numerous were the statistics on the prices of
cream and butter. There were files of farm papers piled about, and racks
of agricultural bulletins. In one corner of the room was a typewriting
machine, and in another a sewing machine. Parts of an old telephone were
scattered about on the teacher's desk. A model of a piggery stood on a
shelf, done in cardboard. Instead of the usual collection of text-books in
the desk, there were hectograph copies of exercises, reading lessons,
arithmetical tables and essays on various matters relating to agriculture,
all of which were accounted for by two or three hand-made hectographs--a
very fair sort of printing plant--lying on a table. The members of the
school board were there, looking on these evidences of innovation with
wonder and more or less disfavor. Things were disorderly. The text-books
recently adopted by the board against some popular protest had evidently
been pitched, neck and crop, out of the school by the man whom Bonner had
termed a dub. It was a sort of contempt for the powers that be.
Colonel Woodruff was in the chair. After the speechifying was over, and
the stereotyped, though rather illogical, appeal had been made for voters
of the one party to cast the straight ticket, and for those of the other
faction to scratch, the colonel rose to adjourn the meeting.
Newton Bronson, safely concealed behind taller people, called out, "Jim
Irwin! speech!"
There was a giggle, a slight sensation, and many voices joined in the call
for the new schoolmaster.
Colonel Woodruff felt the unwisdom of ignoring the demand. Probably he
relied upon Jim's discretion and expected a declination.
Jim arose, seedy and lank, and the voices ceased, save for another
suppressed titter.
"I don't know," said Jim, "whether this call upon me is a joke or not. If
it is, it isn't a practical one, for I can't talk. I don't care much about
parties or politics. I don't know whether I'm a Democrat, a Republican or
a Populist."
This caused a real sensation. The nerve of the fellow! Really, it must in
justice be said, Jim was losing himself in a desire to tell his true
feelings. He forgot all about Jennie and her candidacy--about everything
except his real, true feelings. This proves that he was no politician.
"I don't see much in this county campaign that interests me," he went
on--and Jennie Woodruff reddened, while her seasoned father covered his
mouth with his hand to conceal a smile. "The politicians come out into the
farming districts every campaign and get us hayseeds for anything they
want. They always have got us. They've got us again! They give us
clodhoppers the glad hand, a cheap cigar, and a cheaper smile after
election;--and that's all. I know it, you all know it, they know it. I
don't blame them so very much. The trouble is we don't ask them to do
anything better. I want a new kind of rural school; but I don't see any
prospect, no matter how this election goes, for any change in them. We in
the Woodruff District will have to work out our own salvation. Our
political ring never'll do anything but the old things. They don't want
to, and they haven't sense enough to do it if they did. That's all--and I
don't suppose I should have said as much as I have!"
There was stark silence for a moment when he sat down, and then as many
cheers for Jim as for the principal speaker of the evening, cheers mingled
with titters and catcalls. Jim felt a good deal as he had done when he
knocked down Mr. Billy's chauffeur--rather degraded and humiliated, as if
he had made an ass of himself. And as he walked out of the door, the
future county superintendent passed by him in high displeasure, and walked
home with some one else.
Jim found the weather much colder than it had been while coming. He really
needed an Eskimo's fur suit.