AND THE OLD BOTTLES
The day passed. Four o'clock came. In order that all might reach home for
supper, there was no staying, except that Newt Bronson and Raymond Simms
remained to sweep and dust the schoolroom, and prepare kindling for the
next morning's fire--a work they had taken upon themselves, so as to
enable the teacher to put on the blackboards such outlines for the
morrow's class work as might be required. Jim was writing on the board a
list of words constituting a spelling exercise. They were not from the
text-book, but grew naturally out of the study of the seed
wheat--"cockle," "morning-glory," "convolvulus," "viable," "viability,"
"sprouting," "iron-weed" and the like. A tap was heard at the door, and
Raymond Simms opened it.
In filed three women--and Jim Irwin knew as he looked at them that he was
greeting a deputation, and felt that it meant a struggle. For they were
the wives of the members of the school board. He placed for them the three
available chairs, and in the absence of any for himself remained standing
before them, a gaunt shabby-looking revolutionist at the bar of settled
usage and fixed public opinion.
Mrs. Haakon Peterson was a tall blonde woman who, when she spoke betrayed
her Scandinavian origin by the northern burr to her "r's," and a slight
difficulty with her "j's," her "y's" and long "a's." She was slow-spoken
and dignified, and Jim felt an instinctive respect for her personality.
Mrs. Bronson was a good motherly woman, noted for her housekeeping, and
for her church activities. She looked oftener at her son, and his friend
Raymond than at the schoolmaster. Mrs. Bonner was the most voluble of the
three, and was the only one who shook hands with Jim; but in spite of her
rather offhand manner, Jim sensed in the little, black-eyed Irishwoman the
real commander of the expedition against him--for such he knew it to be.
"You may think it strange of us coming after hours," said she, "but we
wanted to speak to you, teacher, without the children here."
"I wish more of the parents would call," said Jim. "At any hour of the
day."
"Or night either, I dare say," suggested Mrs. Bonner. "I hear you've the
scholars here at all hours, Jim."
Jim smiled his slow patient smile.
"We do break the union rules, I guess, Mrs. Bonner," said he; "there seems
to be more to do than we can get done during school hours."
"What right have ye," struck in Mrs. Bonner, "to be burning the district's
fuel, and wearing out the school's property out of hours like that--not
that it's anny of my business," she interposed, hastily, as if she had
been diverted from her chosen point of attack. "I just thought of it,
that's all. What we came for, Mr. Irwin, is to object to the way the
teachin's being done--corn and wheat, and hogs and the like, instead of
the learnin' schools was made to teach."
"Schools were made to prepare children for life, weren't they, Mrs.
Bonner?"
"To be sure," went on Mrs. Bonner, "I can see an' the whole district can
see that it's easier for a man that's been a farm-hand to teach farm-hand
knowledge, than the learnin' schools was set up to teach; but if so be he
hasn't the book education to do the right thing, we think he should get
out and give a real teacher a chance."
"What am I neglecting?" asked Jim mildly.
Mrs. Bonner seemed unprepared for the question, and sat for an instant
mute. Mrs. Peterson interposed her attack while Mrs. Bonner might be
recovering her wind.
"We people that have had a hard time," she said in a precise way which
seemed to show that she knew exactly what she wanted, "want to give our
boys and girls a chance to live easier lives than we lived. We don't want
our children taught about nothing but work. We want higher things."
"Mrs. Peterson," said Jim earnestly, "we must have first things first.
Making a living is the first thing--and the highest."
"Haakon and I will look after making a living for our family," said she.
"We want our children to learn nice things, and go to high school, and
after a while to the Juniwersity."
"And I," declared Jim, "will send out from this school, if you will let
me, pupils better prepared for higher schools than have ever gone from
it--because they will be trained to think in terms of action. They will go
knowing that thoughts must always be linked with things. Aren't your
children happy in school, Mrs. Peterson?"
"I don't send them to school to be happy, Yim," replied Mrs. Peterson,
calling him by the name most familiarly known to all of them; "I send them
to learn to be higher people than their father and mother. That's what
America means!"
"They'll be higher people--higher than their parents--higher than their
teacher--they'll be efficient farmers, and efficient farmers' wives.
They'll be happy, because they will know how to use more brains in farming
than any lawyer or doctor or merchant can possibly use in his business.
I'm educating them to find an outlet for genius in farming!"
"It's a fine thing," said Mrs. Bonner, coming to the aid of her fellow
soldiers, "to work hard for a lifetime, an' raise nothing but a family of
farmers! A fine thing!"
"They will be farmers anyhow," cried Jim, "in spite of your
efforts--ninety out of every hundred of them! And of the other ten, nine
will be wage-earners in the cities, and wish to God they were back on the
farm; and the hundredth one will succeed in the city. Shall we educate the
ninety-and-nine to fail, that the hundredth, instead of enriching the
rural life with his talents, may steal them away to make the city
stronger? It is already too strong for us farmers. Shall we drive our best
away to make it stronger?"
The guns of Mrs. Bonner and Mrs. Peterson were silenced for a moment, and
Mrs. Bronson, after gazing about at the typewriter, the hectograph, the
exhibits of weed seeds, the Babcock milk tester, and the other
unscholastic equipment, pointed to the list of words, and the arithmetic
problems on the board.
"Do you get them words from the speller?" she asked.
"No," said he, "we got them from a lesson on seed wheat."
"Did them examples come out of an arithmetic book?" cross-examined she.
"No," said Jim, "we used problems we made ourselves. We were figuring
profits and losses on your cows, Mrs. Bronson!"
"Ezra Bronson," said Mrs. Bronson loftily, "don't need any help in telling
what's a good cow. He was farming before you was born!"
"Like fun, he don't need help! He's going to dry old Cherry off and fatten
her for beef; and he can make more money on the cream by beefing about
three more of 'em. The Babcock test shows they're just boarding on us
without paying their board!"
The delegation of matrons ruffled like a group of startled hens at this
interposition, which was Newton Bronson's effective seizing of the
opportunity to issue a progress bulletin in the research work on the
Bronson dairy herd.
"Newton!" said his mother, "don't interrupt me when I'm talking to the
teacher!"
"Well, then," said Newton, "don't tell the teacher that pa knew which cows
were good and which were poor. If any one in this district wants to know
about their cows they'll have to come to this shop. And I can tell you
that it'll pay 'em to come too, if they're going to make anything selling
cream. Wait until we get out our reports on the herds, ma!"
The women were rather stampeded by this onslaught of the irregular
troops--especially Mrs. Bronson. She was placed in the position of a woman
taking a man's wisdom from her ne'er-do-well son for the first time in her
life. Like any other mother in this position, she felt a flutter of
pride--but it was strongly mingled with a motherly desire to spank him.
The deputation rose, with a unanimous feeling that they had been scored
upon.
"Cows!" scoffed Mrs. Peterson. "If we leave you in this yob, Mr. Irwin,
our children will know nothing but cows and hens and soils and grains--and
where will the culture come in? How will our boys and girls appear when we
get fixed so we can move to town? We won't have no culture at all, Yim!"
"Culture!" exclaimed Jim. "Why--why, after ten years of the sort of school
I would give you if I were a better teacher, and could have my way, the
people of the cities would be begging to have their children admitted so
that they might obtain real culture--culture fitting them for life in the
twentieth century--"
"Don't bother to get ready for the city children, Jim," said Mrs. Bonner
sneeringly, "you won't be teaching the Woodruff school that long."
All this time, the dark-faced Cracker had been glooming from a corner,
earnestly seeking to fathom the wrongness he sensed in the gathering. Now
he came forward.
"I reckon I may be making a mistake to say anything," said he, "f'r we-all
is strangers hyeh, an' we're pore; but I must speak out for Mr. Jim--I
must! Don't turn him out, folks, f'r he's done mo' f'r us than eveh any
one done in the world!"
"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Peterson.
"I mean," said Raymond, "that when Mr. Jim began talking school to us, we
was a pore no-'count lot without any learnin', with nothin' to talk about
except our wrongs, an' our enemies, and the meanness of the Iowa folks.
You see we didn't understand you-all. An' now, we have hope. We done got
hope from this school. We're goin' to make good in the world. We're
getting education. We're all learnin' to use books. My little sister will
be as good as anybody, if you'll just let Mr. Jim alone in this school--as
good as any one. An' I'll he'p pap get a farm, and we'll work and think at
the same time, an' be happy!"