A TROUBLE SHOOTER
A sudden July storm had drenched the fields and filled the swales with
water. The cultivators left the corn-fields until the next day's sun and a
night of seepage might once more fit the black soil for tillage. The
little boys rolled up their trousers and tramped home from school with the
rich mud squeezing up between their toes, thrilling with the electricity
of clean-washed nature, and the little girls rather wished they could go
barefooted, too, as, indeed, some of the more sensible did.
A lithe young man with climbers on his legs walked up a telephone pole by
the roadside to make some repairs to the wires, which had been whipped
into a "cross" by the wind of the storm and the lashing of the limbs of
the roadside trees. He had tied his horse to a post up the road, and was
running out the trouble on the line, which was plentifully in evidence
just then. Wind and lightning had played hob with the system, and the line
repairer was cheerfully profane, in the manner of his sort, glad by reason
of the fire of summer in his veins, and incensed at the forces of nature
which had brought him out through the mud to the Woodruff District to do
these piffling jobs that any of the subscribers ought to have known how to
do themselves, and none of which took more than a few minutes of his time
when he reached the seat of the difficulty.
Jim Irwin, his school out for the day, came along the muddy road with two
of his pupils, a bare-legged little boy and a tall girl with flaxen
hair--Bettina Hansen and her small brother Hans, who refused to answer to
any name other than Hans Nilsen. His father's name was Nils Hansen, and
Hans, a born conservative, being the son of Nils, regarded himself as
rightfully a Nilsen, and disliked the "Hans Hansen" on the school
register. Thus do European customs sometimes survive among us.
Hans strode through the pool of water which the shower had spread
completely over the low turnpike a few rods from the pole on which the
trouble shooter was at work, and the electrician ceased his labors and
rested himself on a cross-arm while he waited to see what the
flaxen-haired girl would do when she came to it.
Jim and Bettina stopped at the water's edge. "Oh!" cried she, "I can't get
through!" The trouble shooter felt the impulse to offer his aid, but
thought it best on the whole, to leave the matter in the hands of the lank
schoolmaster.
"I'll carry you across," said Jim.
"I'm too heavy," answered Bettina.
"Nonsense!" said Jim.
"She's awful heavy," piped Hans. "Better take off your shoes, anyhow!"
Jim thought of the welfare of his only good trousers, and saw that Hans'
suggestion was good; but a mental picture of himself with shoes in hand
and bare legs restrained him. He took Bettina in his arms and went slowly
across, walking rather farther with his blushing burden than was strictly
necessary. Bettina was undoubtedly heavy; but she was also wonderfully
pleasant to feel in arms which had never borne such a burden before; and
her arms about his neck as he slopped through the pond were curiously
thrilling. Her cheek brushed his as he set her upon her feet and felt,
rather than thought, that if there had only been a good reason for it,
Bettina would have willingly been carried much farther.
"How strong you are!" she panted. "I'm awful heavy, ain't I?"
"Not very," said Jim, with scholastic accuracy. "You're just right. I--I
mean, you're simply well-nourished and wholesomely plump!"
Bettina blushed still more rosily.
"You've ruined your clothes," said she. "Now you'll have to come home with
me and let me--see who's there!"
Jim looked up at the trouble shooter, and went over to the foot of the
pole. The man walked down, striking his spurs deep into the wood for
safety.
"Hello!" said he. "School out?"
"For the day," said Jim. "Any important work on the telephone line now?"
"Just trouble-shooting," was the answer. "I have to spend three hours
hunting these troubles, to one in fixing 'em up."
"Do they take much technical skill?" asked Jim.
"Mostly shakin' out crosses, and puttin' in new carbons in the arresters,"
replied the trouble man. "Any one ought to do any of 'em with five
minutes' instruction. But these farmers--they'd rather have me drive ten
miles to take a hair-pin from across the binding-posts than to do it
themselves. That's the way they are!"
"Will you be out here to-morrow?" queried the teacher.
"Sure!"
"I'd like to have you show my class in manual training something about the
telephone," said Jim. "The reason we can't fix our own troubles, if they
are as simple as you say, is because we don't know how simple they are."
"I'll tell you what I'll do, Professor," said the trouble man. "I'll bring
a phone with me and give 'em a lecture. I don't see how I can employ the
company's time any better than in beating a little telephone sense into
the heads of the community. Set the time, and I'll be there with bells."
Bettina and her teacher walked on up the shady lane, feeling that they had
a secret. They were very nearly on a parity as to the innocence of soul
with which they held this secret, except that Bettina was much more
single-minded toward it than Jim. To her he had been gradually attaining
the status of a hero whose clasp of her in that iron-armed way was
mysteriously blissful--and beyond that her mind had not gone. To Jim,
Bettina represented in a very sweet way the disturbing influences which
had recently risen to the threshold of consciousness in his being, and
which were concretely but not very hopefully embodied in Jennie Woodruff.
Thus interested in each other, they turned the corner which took them out
of sight of the lineman, and stopped at the shady avenue leading up to
Nils Hansen's farmstead. Little Hans Nilsen had disappeared by the simple
method of cutting across lots. Bettina's girlish instinct called for
something more than the casual good-by which would have sufficed
yesterday. She lingered, standing close by Jim Irwin.
"Won't you come in and let me clean the mud off you," she asked, "and give
you some dry socks?"
"Oh, no!" replied Jim. "It's almost as far to your house as it is home.
Thank you, no."
"There's a splash of mud on your face," said Bettina. "Let me--" And with
her little handkerchief she began wiping off the mud. Jim stooped to
permit the attention, but not much, for Bettina was of the mold of women
of whom warriors are born--their faces approached, and Jim recognized a
crisis in the fact that Bettina's mouth was presented for a kiss. Jim met
the occasion like the gentleman he was. He did not leave her stung by
rejection; neither did he obey the impulse to respond to the invitation
according to his man's instinct; he took the rosy face between his palms
and kissed her forehead--and left her in possession of her self-respect.
After that Bettina Hansen felt, somehow, that the world could not possibly
contain another man like Jim Irwin--a conviction which she still cherishes
when that respectful caress has been swept into the cloudy distance of a
woman's memories.
Pete, Colonel Woodruff's hired man, was watering the horses at the trough
when the trouble shooter reached the Woodruff telephone. County
Superintendent Jennie had run for her father's home in her little
motor-car in the face of the shower, and was now on the bench where once
she had said "Humph!" to Jim Irwin--and thereby started in motion the
factors in this story.
"Anything wrong with your phone?" asked the trouble man of Pete.
"Nah," replied Pete. "It was on the blink till you done something down the
road."
"Crossed up," said the lineman. "These trees along here are something
fierce."
"I'd cut 'em all if they was mine," said Pete, "but the colonel set 'em
out, along about sixty-six, and I reckon they'll have to go on
a-growin'."
"Who's your school-teacher?" asked the telephone man.
The county superintendent pricked up her ears--being quite properly
interested in matters educational.
"Feller name of Irwin," said Pete.
"Not much of a looker," said the trouble shooter.
"Nater of the sile," said Pete. "He an' I both worked in it together till
it roughened up our complexions."
"Farmer, eh?" said the lineman interrogatively. "Well, he's the first
farmer I ever saw in my life that recognized there's education in the
telephone business. I'm goin' to teach a class in telephony at the
schoolhouse to-morrow."
"Don't get swelled up," said Pete. "He has everybody tell them young ones
about everything--blacksmith, cabinet-maker, pie-founder, cookie-cooper,
dressmaker--even down to telephones. He'll have them scholars figurin' on
telephones, and writin' compositions on 'em, and learnin' 'lectricity from
'em an' things like that"
"He must be some feller," said the lineman. "And who's his star pupil?"
"Didn't know he had one," said Pete. "Why?"
"Girl," said the trouble-shooter. "Goes to school from the farm where the
Western Union brace is used at the road."
"Nils Hansen's girl?" asked Pete.
"Toppy little filly," said the lineman, "with silver mane--looks like
she'd pull a good load and step some."
"M'h'm," grunted Pete. "Bettina Hansen. Looks well enough. What about
her?"
Again the county superintendent, seated on the bench, pricked up her ears
that she might learn, mayhap, something of educational interest.
"I never wanted to be a school-teacher as bad," continued the shooter of
trouble, "as I did when this farmer got to the low place in the road with
the fair Bettina this afternoon when they was comin' home from school. The
water was all over the road----"
"Then I win a smoke from the roadmaster," said Pete. "I bet him it would
overflow."
"Well, if I was in the professor's place, I'd be glad to pay the bet,"
said the worldly lineman. "And I'll say this for him, he rose equal to the
emergency and caved the emergency's head in. He carried her across the
pond, and her a-clingin' to his neck in a way to make your mouth water.
She wasn't a bit mad about it, either."
"I'd rather have a good cigar any ol' time," said Pete. "Nothin' but a
yaller-haired kid--an' a Dane at that. I had a dame once up at Spirit
Lake----"
"Well, I must be drivin' on," said the lineman. "Got to get up a lecture
for Professor Irwin to-morrow--and maybe I'll be able to meet that
yaller-haired kid. So long!"
The county superintendent recognized at once the educational importance of
the matter, when one of her country teachers adopted the policy of calling
in everybody available who could teach the pupils anything special, and
converting the school into a local Chautauqua served by local lecturers.
She made a run of ten miles to hear the trouble shooter's lecture. She saw
the boys and some of the girls give an explanation of the telephone and
the use of it. She heard the teacher give as a language exercise the next
day an essay on the ethics and proprieties of eavesdropping on party
lines; and she saw the beginning of an arrangement under which the boys of
the Woodruff school took the contract to look after easily-remedied line
troubles in the neighborhood on the basis which paid for a telephone for
the school, and swelled slightly the fund which Jim was accumulating for
general purposes. Incidentally, she saw how really educational was the
work of the day, and that to which it led.
She had no curiosity to which she would have confessed, about the
relations between Jim Irwin and his "star pupil," that young
Brunhilde--Bettina Hansen; but her official duty required her to observe
the attitude of pupils to teachers--Bettina among them. Clearly, Jim was
looked upon by the girls, large and small, as a possession of theirs. They
competed for the task of keeping his desk in order, and of dusting and
tidying up the schoolroom. There was something of exaltation of sentiment
in this. Bettina's eyes followed him about the room in a devotional sort
of way; but so, too, did those of the ten-year-olds. He was loved, that
was clear, by Bettina, Calista Simms and all the rest--an excellent thing
in a school.
All the same, Jennie met Jim rather oftener after the curious conversation
between those rather low fellows, Pete and the trouble shooter. As autumn
approached, and the time came for Jim to begin to think of his trip to
Ames, Colonel Woodruff's hint that she should assume charge of the problem
of Jim's clothes for the occasion, came more and more often to her mind.
Would Jim be able to buy suitable clothes? Would he understand that he
ought not to appear in the costume which was tolerable in the Woodruff
District only because the people there were accustomed to seeing him
dressed like a tramp? Could she approach the subject with any degree of
safety? Really these were delicate questions; and considering the fact
that Jennie had quite dismissed her old sweetheart from the list of
eligibles--had never actually admitted him to it, in fact--they assumed
great importance to her mind. Once, only a little more than a year ago,
she had scoffed at Jim's mention of the fact that he might think of
marrying; and now she could not think of saying to him kindly, "Jim, you
really must have some better clothes to wear when you go to Ames!" It
would have been far easier last summer.
Somehow, Jim had been acquiring dignity and unapproachability. She must
sidle up to the subject. She did. She took him into her runabout one day
as he was striding toward town in that plowed-ground manner of his, and
gave him a spin over to the fair grounds and two or three times around the
half-mile track.
"I'm going to Ames to hear your speech," said she.
"I'm glad of that," said Jim. "More of the farmers are going from this
neighborhood than ever before. I'll feel at home, if they all sit together
where I can talk at them."
"Who's going?" asked Jennie.
"The Bronsons, Con Bonner and Nils Hansen and Bettina," replied Jim.
"That's all from our district--and Columbus Brown and probably others from
near-by localities."
"I shall have to have some clothes," said Jennie.
Jim failed to respond to this, as clearly out of his field. They were
passing the county fair buildings, and he began expatiating on the kind of
county fair he would have--a great county exposition with the schools as
its central thought--a clearing house for the rural activities of all the
country schools.
"And pa's going to have a suit before we go, too," said Jennie. "Here are
some samples I got of Atkins, the tailor. Which would be the most becoming
do you think?"
Jim looked the samples over carefully, but had little to say as to their
adaptation to Colonel Woodruff's sartorial needs. Jennie laid great stress
on the excellent quality of one or two samples, and carefully specified
the prices of them. Jim exhibited no more than a languid and polite
interest, and gave not the slightest symptom of ever having considered
even remotely the contingency of having a tailor-made suit. Jennie sidled
closer to the subject.
"I should think it would be awfully hard for you to get fitted in the
stores," said she, "you are so very tall."
"It would be," said Jim, "if I had ever considered the matter of looks
very much. I guess I'm not constructed on any plan the clothing
manufacturers have regarded as even remotely possible. How about this
county fair idea? Couldn't we do this next fall? You organize the
teachers----"
Jennie advanced the spark, cut out the muffler and drowned the rest of
Jim's remarks in wind and dust.
"I give it up, dad," said she to her father that evening.
"What?" queried the colonel.
"Jim Irwin's clothes," she replied. "I think he'll go to Ames in a
disgraceful plight, but I can't get any closer to the subject than I have
done."
"Oh, then you haven't heard the news," said the colonel. "Jim's going to
have his first made-to-measure suit for Ames. It's all fixed."
"Who's making it?" asked Jennie.
"Gustaf Paulsen, the Dane that's just opened a shop in town." "A Dane?"
queried Jennie. "Isn't he related to some of the neighbors?"
"A brother to Mrs. Hansen," answered the colonel.
"Bettina's uncle!"
"Ratherly," said the colonel jocularly, "seeing as how Bettina's Mrs.
Hansen's daughter."
Clothes are rather important, but the difference between a suit made by
Atkins the tailor, and one built by Gustaf Paulsen, the new Danish
craftsman, could not be supposed to be crucially important, even when
designed for a very dear friend. And Jim was scarcely that--of course not!
Why, then, did the county superintendent hastily run to her room, and cry?
Why did she say to herself that the Hansens were very good people, and
well-to-do, and it would be a fine thing for Jim and his mother,--and then
cry some more? Colonel failed to notice Jennie's unceremonious retirement
from circulation that evening, and had he known all about what took place,
he would have been as mystified as you or I.