AN EMBASSY FROM DIXIE
Superintendent Jennie sat at her desk in no very satisfactory frame of
mind. In the first place court was to convene on the following Monday, and
both grand jury and petit juries would be in session, so that her one-room
office was not to be hers for a few days. Her desk was even now ready to
be moved into the hall by the janitor. To Wilbur Smythe, who did her the
honor of calling occasionally as the exigencies of his law practise took
him past the office of the pretty country girl on whose shapely shoulders
rested the burden of the welfare of the schools, she remarked that if they
didn't soon build the new court-house so as to give her such
accommodations as her office really needed, "they might take their old
office--so there!"
"Fair woman," said Wilbur, as he creased his Prince Albert in a parting
bow, "should adorn the home!"
"Bosh!" sneered Jennie, rather pleased, all the same, "suppose she isn't
fair, and hasn't any home!"
This question of adorning a home was no nearer settlement with Jennie than
it had ever been, though increasingly a matter of speculation.
There were two or three men--rather good catches, too--who, if they were
encouraged--but what was there to any of them? Take Wilbur Smythe, now; he
would by sheer force of persistent assurance and fair abilities eventually
get a good practise for a country lawyer--three or four thousand a
year--serve in the legislature or the state senate, and finally become a
bank director with a goodly standing as a safe business man; but what was
there to him? This is what Jennie asked her paper-weight as she placed it
on a pile of unfinished examination papers. And the paper-weight echoed,
"Not a thing out of the ordinary!" And then, said Jennie, "Well, you
little simpleton, who and what are _you_ so out of the ordinary that you
should sneer at Wilbur Smythe and Beckman Fifield and such men?" And echo
answered, "What?"--and then the mail-carrier came in.
Down near the bottom of the pile she found this letter, signed by a
southern state superintendent of schools, but dated at Kirksville,
Missouri:
"I am a member of a party of southern educators--state
superintendents in the main," the letter ran, "_en tour_ of the
country to see what we can find of an instructive nature in rural
school work. I assure you that we are being richly repaid for the
time and expense. There are things going on in the schools here in
northeastern Missouri, for instance, which merit much study. We have
met Professor Withers, of Ames, who suggests that we visit your
schools, and especially the rural school taught by a young man named
Irwin, and I wonder if you will be free on next Monday morning, if we
come to your office, to direct us to the place? If you could
accompany us on the trip, and perhaps show us some of your other
excellent schools, we should be honored and pleased. The South is
recreating her rural schools, and we are coming to believe that we
shall be better workmen if we create a new kind rather than an
improvement of the old kind."
There was more of this courteous and deferential letter, all giving Jennie
a sense of being saluted by a fine gentleman in satin and ruffles, and
with a plume on his hat. And then came the shock--a party of state
officials were coming into the county to study Jim Irwin's school! They
would never come to study Wilbur Smythe's law practise--never in the
world--or her work as county superintendent--never!--and Jim was getting
seventy-five dollars a month, and had a mother to support. Moreover, he
was getting more than he had asked when the colonel had told him to "hold
the district up!" But there could be no doubt that there was something
_to_ Jim--the man was out of the ordinary. And wasn't that just what she
had been looking for in her mind?
Jennie wired to her southerner for the number of his party, and secured
automobiles for the trip. She sent a note to Jim Irwin telling of the
prospective visitation. She would show all concerned that she could do
some things, anyhow, and she would send these people on with a good
impression of her county.
She was glad of the automobiles the next Monday morning, when at
nine-thirty the train discharged upon her a dozen very alert, very
up-to-date, very inquisitive southerners, male and female, most of whom
seemed to have left their "r's" in the gulf region. It was eleven when the
party parked their machines before the schoolhouse door.
"There are visitors here before us," said Jennie.
"Seems rather like an educational shrine," said Doctor Brathwayt, of
Mississippi. "How does he accommodate so many visitors in that small
edifice?"
"I am not aware," said Jennie, "that he has been in the habit of receiving
so very many from outside the district. Well, shall we go in?"
Once inside, Jennie felt a queer return of her old aversion to Jim's
methods--the aversion which had caused her to criticize him so sharply on
the occasion of her first visit. The reason for the return of the feeling
lay in the fact that the work going on was of the same sort, but of a more
intense character. It was so utterly unlike a school as Jennie understood
the word, that she glanced back at the group of educators with a little
blush. The school was in a sort of uproar. Not that uproar of boredom and
mischief of which most of us have familiar memories, but a sort of eager
uproar, in which every child was intensely interested in the same thing;
and did little rustling things because of this interest; something like
the hum at a football game or a dog-fight.
On one side of the desk stood Jim Irwin, and facing him was a smooth
stranger of the old-fashioned lightning-rod-agent type--the shallower and
laxer sort of salesman of the kind whose sole business is to get
signatures on the dotted line, and let some one else do the rest. In
short, he was a "closer."
Standing back of him in evident distress was Mr. Cornelius Bonner, and
grouped about were Columbus Brown, B. B. Hamm, Ezra Bronson, A. B. Talcott
and two or three others from outside the Woodruff District. With envelopes
in their hands and the light of battle in their eyes stood Newton Bronson,
Raymond Simms, Bettina Hansen, Mary Smith and Angie Talcott, the boys
filled with delight, the girls rather frightened at being engaged in
something like a debate with the salesman.
As the latest-coming visitors moved forward, they heard the schoolmaster
finishing his passage at arms with the salesman.
"You should not feel exasperated at us, Mr. Carmichael," said he in tones
of the most complete respect, "for what our figures show. You are
unfortunate in the business proposition you offer this community. That is
all. Even these children have the facts to prove that the creamery outfit
you offer is not worth within two thousand dollars of what you ask for it,
and that it is very doubtful if it is the sort of outfit we should need."
"I'll bet you a thousand dollars--" began Carmichael hotly, when Jim waved
him down.
"Not with me," said Jim. "Your friend, Mr. Bonner, there, knows what
chance there is for you to bet even a thousand cents with me. Besides, we
know our facts, in this school. We've been working on them for a long
time."
"Bet your life we have!" interpolated Newton Bronson.
"Before we finish," said Jim, "I want to thank you gentlemen for bringing
in Mr. Carmichael. We have been reading up on the literature of the
creamery promoter, and it is a very fine thing to have one in the flesh
with whom to--to--demonstrate, if Mr. Carmichael will allow me to say
so."
Carmichael looked at Bonner, made an expressive motion with his head
toward the door, and turned as if to leave.
"Well," said he, "I can do plenty of business with _men_. If you _men_
want to make the deal I offer you, and I can show you from the statistics
I've got at the hotel that it's a special deal just to get started in this
part of the state, and carries a thousand dollars of cut in price to you.
Let's leave these children and this he school-ma'am and get something
done."
"I can't allow you to depart," said Jim more gently than before, "without
thanking you for the very excellent talk you gave us on the advantage of
the cooperative creamery over the centralizer. We in this school believe
in the cooperative creamery, and if we can get rid of you, Mr. Carmichael,
without buying your equipment, I think your work here may be productive of
good."
"He's off three or four points on the average overrun in the Wisconsin
co-ops," said Newton.
"And we thought," said Mary Smith, "that we'd need more cows than he said
to keep up a creamery of our own."
"Oh," replied Jim, "but we mustn't expect Mr. Carmichael to know the
subject as well as we do, children. He makes a practise of talking mostly
to people who know nothing about it--and he talks very well. All in favor
of thanking Mr. Carmichael please say 'Aye.'"
There was a rousing chorus of "Aye!" in which Mr. Carmichael, followed
closely by Mr. Bonner, made his exit. B. B. Hamm went forward and shook
Jim's hand slowly and contemplatively, as if trying to remember just what
he should say.
"James E. Irwin," said he, "you've saved us from being skinned by the
smoothest grafter that I ever seen."
"Not I," said Jim; "the kind of school I stand for, Mr. Hamm, will save
you more than that--and give you the broadest culture any school ever
gave. A culture based on life. We've been studying life, in this
school--the life we all live here in this district."
"He had a smooth partner, too," said Columbus Brown. Jim looked at
Bonner's little boy in one of the front seats and shook his head at
Columbus warningly.
"If I hadn't herded 'em in here to ask you a few questions about
cooperative creameries," said Mr. Talcott, "we'd have been stuck--they
pretty near had our names. And then the whole neighborhood would have been
sucked in for about fifty dollars a name."
"I'd have gone in for two hundred," said B. B. Hamm.
"May I call a little meeting here for a minute, Jim?" asked Ezra Bronson.
"Why, where's he gone?"
"They's some other visitors come in," said a little girl, pulling her
apron in embarrassment at the teacher's absence.
Jim had, after what seemed to Jennie an interminable while, seen the
county superintendent and her distinguished party, and was now engaged in
welcoming them and endeavoring to find them seats,--quite an impossible
thing at that particular moment, by the way.
"Don't mind us, Mr. Irwin," said Doctor Brathwayt. "This is the best thing
we've seen on our journeyings. Please go on with the proceedin's. That
gentleman seems to have in mind the perfectin' of some so't of
organization. I'm intensely interested."
"I'd like to call a little meetin' here," said Ezra to the teacher.
"Seein' we've busted up your program so far, may we take a little while
longer?"
"Certainly," said Jim. "The school will please come to order."
The pupils took their seats, straightened their books and papers, and were
at attention. Doctor Brathwayt nodded approvingly as if at the answer to
some question in his mind.
"Children," said Mr. Irwin, "you may or may not be interested in what
these gentlemen are about to do--but I hope you are. Those who wish may be
members of Mr. Bronson's meeting. Those who do not prefer to do so may
take up their regular work."
"Gentlemen," said Mr. Bronson to the remains of Mr. Carmichael's creamery
party, "we've been cutting bait in this neighborhood about long enough.
I'm in favor of fishing, now. It would have been the biggest disgrace ever
put on this district to have been swindled by that sharper, when the man
that could have set us right on the subject was right here working for us,
and we never let him have a chance. And yet that's what we pretty near
did. How many here favor building a cooperative creamery if we can get the
farmers in with cows enough to make it profitable, and the equipment at
the right price?"
Each man held up a hand.
"Here's one of our best farmers not voting," said Mr. Bronson, indicating
Raymond Simms. "How about you, Raymond?"
"Ah reckon paw'll come in," said Raymond blushingly.
"He will if you say so," said Mr. Bronson.
Raymond's hand went up amid a ripple of applause from the pupils, who
seemed glad to have a voter in their ranks.
"Unanimous!" said Mr. Bronson. "It is a vote! Now I'd like to hear a
motion to perfect a permanent organization to build a creamery."
"I think we ought to have a secretary first," said Mr. Talcott, "and I
nominate Mr. James E. Irwin for the post."
"Quite correct," said Mr. Bronson, "thankee, A. B. I was about to forgit
the secretary. Any other nominations? No 'bjections, Mr. Irwin will be
declared unanimously elected. Mr. Irwin's elected. Mr. Irwin, will you
please assume the duties?"
Jim sat down at the desk and began making notes.
"I think we ought to call this the Anti-Carmichael Protective
Association," said Columbus Brown, but Mr. Bronson interrupted him, rather
frowningly.
"All in good time, Clumb," said he, "but this is serious work." So
admonished, the meeting appointed committees, fixed upon a time for a
future meeting, threw a collection of half-dollars on the desk to start a
petty cash fund, made the usual joke about putting the secretary under
bond, adjourned and dispersed.
"It's a go this time!" said Newton to Jim.
"I think so," said Jim, "with those men interested. Well, our study of
creameries has given a great deal of language work, a good deal of
arithmetic, some geography, and finally saved the people from a swindle.
Rather good work, Raymond!"
"My mother has a delayed luncheon ready for the party," said Jennie to
Jim. "Please come with us--please!"
But Jim demurred. Getting off at this time of day was really out of the
question if he was to be ready to show the real work of the school in the
afternoon session.
"This has been rather extraordinary," said Jim, "but I am very glad you
were here. It shows the utility of the right sort of work in
letter-writing, language, geography and arithmetic--in learning things
about farming."
"It certainly does," said Doctor Brathwayt. "I wouldn't have missed it
under any consideration; but I'm certainly sorry for that creamery shark
and his accomplice--to be routed by the Fifth Reader grade in farming!"
The luncheon was rather a wonderful affair--and its success was
unqualified after everybody discovered that the majority of those in
attendance felt much more at home when calling it dinner. Colonel Woodruff
had fought against the regiment of the father of Professor Gray, of
Georgia, in at least one engagement, and tentative plans were laid for the
meeting of the two old veterans "some winter in the future."
"What d'ye think of our school?" asked the colonel.
"Well," said Professor Gray, "it's not fair to judge, Colonel, on what
must have been rather an extraordinary moment in the school's history. I
take it that you don't put on a representation of 'The Knave Unmasked'
every morning."
"It was more like a caucus than I've ever seen it, daddy," said Jennie,
"and less like a school."
"Don't you think," said Doctor Brathwayt, "that it was less like a school
because it was more like life? It _was_ life. If I am not mistaken,
history for this community was making in that schoolroom as we entered."
"You're perfectly right, Doctor," said the colonel. "Columbus Brown and
about a dozen others living outside the district are calling Wilbur Smythe
in counsel to perfect plans for an election to consolidate a few of these
little independent districts, for the express purpose of giving Jim Irwin
a plant that he can do something with. Jim's got too big for the district,
and so we're going to enlarge the district, and the schoolhouse, and the
teaching force, and the means of educational grace generally. That's as
sure as can be--after what took place this morning."
"He's rather a wonderful person, to be found in such a position," said
Professor Gray, "or would be in any region I have visited."
"He's a native product," said the colonel, "but a wonder all the same.
He's a Brown Mouse, you know."
"A--a--?" Doctor Brathwayt was plainly astonished. And so the colonel was
allowed to tell again the story of the Darbishire brown mice, and why he
called Jim Irwin one. Doctor Brathwayt said it was an interesting
Mendelian explanation of the appearance of such a character as Jim. "And
if you are right, Colonel, you'll lose him one of these days. You can't
expect to retain a Caesar, a Napoleon, or a Lincoln in a rural school, can
you?"
"I don't know about that," said the colonel. "The great opportunity for
such a Brown Mouse may be in this very school, right now. He'd have as big
an army right here as Socrates ever had. The Brown Mouse is the only judge
of his own proper place."
"I think," said Mrs. Brathwayt, as they motored back to the school, "that
your country schoolmaster is rather terrible. The way he crushed that Mr.
Carmichael was positively merciless. Did he know how cruel he was?"
"I think not," said Jennie. "It was the truth that crushed Mr.
Carmichael."
"But that vote of thanks," said Mrs. Brathwayt. "Surely that was the
bitterest irony."
"I wonder if it was," said Jennie. "No, I am sure it wasn't. He wanted to
leave the children thinking as well as possible of their victim, and
especially of Mr. Bonner; and there was really something in Mr.
Carmichael's talk which could be praised. I have known Jim Irwin since we
were both children, and I feel sure that if he had had any idea that his
treatment of this man had been unnecessarily cruel, it would have given
him a lot of pain."
"My dear," said Mrs. Brathwayt, "I think you are to be congratulated for
having known for a long time a genius."
"Thank you," said Jennie. And Mrs. Brathwayt gave her a glance which
brought to her cheek another blush; but of a different sort from the one
provoked by the uproar in the Woodruff school.
There could be no doubt now that Jim was thoroughly wonderful--nor that
she, the county superintendent, was quite as thoroughly a little fool. She
to be put in authority over him! It was too absurd for laughter.
Fortunately, she hadn't hindered him much--but who was to be thanked for
that? Was it owing to any wisdom of hers? Well, she had decided in his
favor, in those first proceedings to revoke his certificate. Perhaps that
was as good a thing to remember as was to be found in the record.