Every Iowa county has its Farmers’ Institute. Usually it is held in the county seat, and is a gathering of farmers for the ostensible purpose of listening to improving discussions and addresses both instructive and entertaining. Really, in most cases, the farmers’ institutes have been occasions for the cultivation of relations between a few of the exceptional farmers and their city friends and with one another. Seldom is anything done which leads to any better selling methods for the farmers, any organization looking to cooperative effort, or anything else that an agricultural economist from Ireland, Germany or Denmark would suggest as the sort of action which the American farmer must take if he is to make the most of his life and labor.

The Woodruff District was interested in the institute however, because of the fact that a rural-school exhibit was one of its features that year, and that Colonel Woodruff had secured an urgent invitation to the school to take part in it.

“We’ve got something new out in our district school,” said he to the president of the institute.

“So I hear,” said the president—“mostly a fight, isn’t it?”

“Something more,” said the colonel. “If you’ll persuade our school to make an exhibit of real rural work in a real rural school, I’ll promise you something worth seeing and discussing.”

Such exhibits are now so common that it is not worth while for us to describe it; but then, the sight of a class of children testing and weighing milk, examining grains for viability and foul seeds, planning crop rotations, judging grains and live stock was so new in that county as to be the real sensation of the institute.

Two persons were a good deal embarrassed by the success of the exhibit. One was the county superintendent, who was constantly in receipt of undeserved compliments upon her wisdom in fostering really “practical work in the schools.” The other was Jim Irwin, who was becoming famous, and who felt he had done nothing to deserve fame. Professor Withers, an extension lecturer from Ames, took Jim to dinner at the best hotel in the town, for the purpose of talking over with him the needs of the rural schools. Jim was in agony. The colored waiter fussed about trying to keep Jim in the beaten track of hotel manners, restored to him the napkin which Jim failed to use, and juggled back into place the silverware which Jim misappropriated to alien and unusual uses. But, when the meal had progressed to the stage of conversation, the waiter noticed that gradually the uncouth farmer became master of the situation, and the well-groomed college professor the interested listener.

“You’ve got to come down to our farmers’ week next year, and tell us about these things,” said he to Jim. “Can’t you?”

Jim’s brain reeled. He go to a gathering of real educators and tell his crude notions! How could he get the money for his expenses? But he had that gameness which goes with supreme confidence in the thing dealt with.

“I’ll come,” said he.

“Thank you,” said the Ames man, “There’s a small honorarium attached, you know.”

Jim was staggered. What was an honorarium? He tried to remember what an honorarium is, and could get no further than the thought that it is in some way connected with the Latin root of “honor.” Was he obliged to pay an honorarium for the chance to speak before the college gathering? Well, he’d save money and pay it. The professor must be able to understand that it couldn’t be expected that a country school-teacher would be able to pay much.

“I—I’ll try to take care of the honorarium,” said he. “I’ll come.”

The professor laughed. It was the first joke the gangling innovator had perpetrated.

“It won’t bother you to take care of it,” said he, “but if you’re not too extravagant it will pay you your expenses and give you a few dollars over.”

Jim breathed more freely. An honorarium was paid to the person receiving the honor, then. What a relief!

“All right,” he exclaimed. “I’ll be glad to come!”

“Let’s consider that settled,” said the professor. “And now I must be going back to the opera-house. My talk on soil sickness comes next. I tell you, the winter wheat crop has been—”

But Jim was not able to think much of the winter wheat problem as they went back to the auditorium. He was worth putting on the program at a state meeting! He was worth the appreciation of a college professor, trained to think on the very matters Jim had been so long mulling over in isolation and blindness! He was actually worth paying for his thoughts.

Calista Simms thought she saw something shining and saint-like about the homely face of her teacher as he came to her at her post in the room in which the school exhibit was held. Calista was in charge of the little children whose work was to be demonstrated that day, and was in a state of exaltation to which her starved being had hitherto been a stranger. Perhaps there was something similar in her condition of fervent happiness to that of Jim. She, too, was doing something outside the sordid life of the Simms cabin. She yearned over the children in her care, and would have been glad to die for them—and besides was not Newton Bronson in charge of the corn exhibit, and a member of the corn-judging team? To the eyes of the town girls who passed about among the exhibits, she was poorly dressed; but if they could have seen the clothes she had worn on that evening when Jim Irwin first called at their cabin and failed to give a whoop from the big road, they could perhaps have understood the sense of wellbeing and happiness in Calista’s soul at the feeling of her whole clean underclothes, her neat, if cheap, dress, and the “boughten” cloak she wore—and any of them, even without knowledge of this, might have understood Calista’s joy at the knowledge that Newton Bronson’s eyes were on her from his station by the big pillar, no matter how many town girls filed by. For therein they would have been in a realm of the passions quite universal in its appeal to the feminine soul.

“Hello, Calista!” said Jim. “How are you enjoying it?”

“Oh!” said Calista, and drew a long, long breath. “Ah’m enjoying myse’f right much, Mr. Jim.”

“Any of the home folks coming in to see?”

“Yes, seh,” answered Calista. “All the school board have stopped by this morning.”

Jim looked about him. He wished he could see and shake hands with his enemies, Bronson, Peterson and Bonner: and if he could tell them of his success with Professor Withers of the State Agricultural College, perhaps they would feel differently toward him. There they were now, over in a corner, with their heads together. Perhaps they were agreeing among themselves that he was right in his school methods, and they wrong. He went toward them, his face still beaming with that radiance which had shone so plainly to the eyes of Calista Simms, but they saw in it only a grin of exultation over his defeat of them at the hearing before Jennie Woodruff. When Jim had drawn so close as almost to call for the extended hand, he felt the repulsion of their attitudes and sheered off on some pretended errand to a dark corner across the room.

They resumed their talk.

“I’m a Dimocrat,” said Con Bonner, “and you fellers is Republicans, and we’ve fought each other about who we was to hire for teacher; but when it comes to electing my successor, I think we shouldn’t divide on party lines.”

“The fight about the teacher,” said Haakon Peterson, “is a t’ing of the past. All our candidates got odder yobs now.”

“Yes,” said Ezra Bronson. “Prue Foster wouldn’t take our school now if she could get it”

“And as I was sayin’,” went on Bonner, “I want to get this guy, Jim Irwin. An’ bein’ the cause of his gittin’ the school, I’d like to be on the board to kick him off; but if you fellers would like to have some one else, I won’t run, and if the right feller is named, I’ll line up what friends I got for him.” “You got no friend can git as many wotes as you can,” said Peterson. “I tank you better run.”

“What say, Ez?” asked Bonner.

“Suits me all right,” said Bronson. “I guess we three have had our fight out and understand each other.”

“All right,” returned Bonner, “I’ll take the office again. Let’s not start too soon, but say we begin about a week from Sunday to line up our friends, to go to the school election and vote kind of unanimous-like?”

“Suits me,” said Bronson.

“Wery well,” said Peterson.

“I don’t like the way Colonel Woodruff acts,” said Bonner. “He rounded up that gang of kids that shot us all to pieces at that hearing, didn’t he?”

“I tank not,” replied Peterson. “I tank he was yust interested in how Yennie managed it.”

“Looked mighty like he was managin’ the demonstration,” said Bonner. “What d’ye think, Ez?”

“Too small a matter for the colonel to monkey with,” said Bronson. “I reckon he was just interested in Jennie’s dilemmer. It ain’t reasonable that Colonel Woodruff after the p’litical career he’s had would mix up in school district politics.”

“Well,” said Bonner, “he seems to take a lot of interest in this exhibition here. I think we’d better watch the colonel. That decision of Jennie’s might have been because she’s stuck on Jim Irwin, or because she takes a lot of notice of what her father says.”

“Or she might have thought the decision was right,” said Bronson. “Some people do, you know.”

“Right!” scoffed Bonner. “In a pig’s wrist! I tell you that decision was crooked.”

“Vell,” said Haakon Peterson, “talk of crookedness wit’ Yennie Woodruff don’t get wery fur wit’ me.”

“Oh, I don’t mean anything bad, Haakon,” replied Bonner, “but it wasn’t an all-right decision. I think she’s stuck on the guy.”

The caucus broke up after making sure that the three members of the school board would be as one man in maintaining a hostile front to Jim Irwin and his tenure of office. It looked rather like a foregone conclusion, in a little district wherein there were scarcely twenty-five votes. The three members of the board with their immediate friends and dependents could muster two or three ballots each—and who was there to oppose them? Who wanted to be school director? It was a post of no profit, little honor and much vexation. And yet, there are always men to be found who covet such places. Curiously there are always those who covet them for no ascertainable reason, for often they are men who have no theory of education to further, and no fondness for affairs of the intellect. In the Woodruff District, however, the incumbents saw no candidate in view who could be expected to stand up against the rather redoubtable Con Bonner. Jim’s hold upon his work seemed fairly secure for the term of his contract, since Jennie had decided that he was competent; and after that he himself had no plans. He could not expect to be retained by the men who had so bitterly attacked him. Perhaps the publicity of his Ames address would get him another place with a sufficient stipend so that he could support his mother without the aid of the little garden, the cows and the fowls—and perhaps he would ask Colonel Woodruff to take him back as a farm-hand. These thoughts thronged his mind as he stood apart and alone after his rebuff by the caucusing members of the school board.

“I don’t see,” said a voice over against the cooking exhibit, “what there is in this to set people talking? Buttonholes! Cookies! Humph!”

It was Mrs. Bonner who had clearly come to scoff. With her was Mrs. Bronson, whose attitude was that of a person torn between conflicting influences. Her husband had indicated to the crafty Bonner and the subtle Peterson that while he was still loyal to the school board, and hence perforce opposed to Jim Irwin, and resentful to the decision of the county superintendent, his adhesion to the institutions of the Woodruff District as handed down by the fathers was not quite of the thick-and-thin type. For he had suggested that Jennie might have been sincere in rendering her decision, and that some people agreed with her: so Mrs. Bronson, while consorting with the censorious Mrs. Bonner evinced restiveness when the school and its work was condemned. Was not her Newton in charge of a part of this show! Had he not taken great interest in the project? Was he not an open and defiant champion of Jim Irwin, and a constant and enthusiastic attendant upon, not only his classes, but a variety of evening and Saturday affairs at which the children studied arithmetic, grammar, geography, writing and spelling, by working on cows, pigs, chickens, grains, grasses, soils and weeds? And had not Newton become a better boy—a wonderfully better boy? Mrs. Bronson’s heart was filled with resentment that she also could not be enrolled among Jim Irwin’s supporters. And when Mrs. Bonner sneered at the buttonholes and cookies, Mrs. Bronson, knowing how the little fingers had puzzled themselves over the one, and young faces had become floury and red over the other, flared up a little.

“And I don’t see,” said she, “anything to laugh at when the young girls do the best they can to make themselves capable housekeepers. I’d like to help them.” She turned to Mrs. Bonner as if to add “If this be treason, make the most of it!” but that lady was far too good a diplomat to be cornered in the same enclosure with a rupture of relations.

“And quite right, too,” said she, “in the proper place, and at the proper time. The little things ought to be helped by every real woman—of course!”

“Of course,” repeated Mrs. Bronson.

“At home, now, and by their mothers,” added Mrs. Bonner.

“Well,” said Mrs. Bronson, “take them Simms girls, now. They have to have help outside their home if they are ever going to be like other folks.”

“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Bonner, “and a lot more help than a farm-hand can give ’em in school. Pretty poor trash, they, and I shouldn’t wonder if there was a lot we don’t know about why they come north.”

“As for that,” replied Mrs. Bronson, “I don’t know as it’s any of my business so long as they behave themselves.”

Again Mrs. Bonner felt the situation getting out of hand, and again she returned to the task of keeping Mrs. Bronson in alignment with the forces of accepted Woodruff District conditions.

“Ain’t it some of our business?” she queried. “I wonder now! By the way Newtie keeps his eye on that Simms girl, I shouldn’t wonder if it might turn out your business.”

“Pshaw!” scoffed Mrs. Bronson. “Puppy love!”

“You can’t tell how far it’ll go,” persisted Mrs. Bonner. “I tell you these schools are getting to be nothing more than sparkin’ bees, from the county superintendent down.”

“Well, maybe,” said Mrs. Bronson, “but I don’t see sparkin’ in everything boys and girls do as quick as some.”

“I wonder,” said Mrs. Bonner, “if Colonel Woodruff would be as friendly to Jim Irwin if he knew that everybody says Jennie decided he was to keep his certif’kit because she wants him to get along in the world, so he can marry her?”

“I don’t know as she is so very friendly to him,” replied Mrs. Bronson; “and Jim and Jennie are both of age, you know.”

“Yes, but how about our schools bein’ ruined by a love affair?” interrogated Mrs. Bonner, as they moved away. “Ain’t that your business and mine?”

Instead of desiring further knowledge of what they were discussing, Jim felt a dreadful disgust at the whole thing. Disgust at being the subject of gossip, at the horrible falsity of the picture he had been able to paint to the people of his objects and his ambitions, and especially at the desecration of Jennie by such misconstruction of her attitude toward him officially and personally. Jennie was vexed at him, and wanted him to resign from his position. He firmly believed that she was surprised at finding herself convinced that he was entitled to a decision in the matter of his competency as a teacher. She was against him, he believed, and as for her being in love with him—to hear these women discuss it was intolerable.

He felt his face redden as at the hearing of some horrible indecency. He felt himself stripped naked, and he was hotly ashamed that Jennie should be associated with him in the exposure. And while he was raging inwardly, paying the penalty of his new-found place in the public eye—a publicity to which he was not yet hardened—he heard other voices. Professor Withers, County Superintendent Jennie and Colonel Woodruff were making an inspection of the rural-school exhibit.

“I hear he has been having some trouble with his school board,” the professor was saying.

“Yes,” said Jennie, “he has.”

“Wasn’t there an effort made to remove him from his position?” asked the professor.

“Proceedings before me to revoke his certificate,” replied Jennie.

“On what grounds?”

“Incompetency,” answered Jennie. “I found that his pupils were really doing very well in the regular course of study—which he seems to be neglecting.”

“I’m glad you supported him,” said the professor. “I’m glad to find you helping him.” “Really,” protested Jennie, “I don’t think myself—”

“What do you think of his notions?” asked the colonel.

“Very advanced,” replied Professor Withers. “Where did he imbibe them all?”

“He’s a Brown Mouse,” said the colonel.

“I beg your pardon,” said the puzzled professor. “I didn’t quite understand. A—a—what?”

“One of papa’s breeding jokes,” said Jennie. “He means a phenomenon in heredity—perhaps a genius, you know.”

“Ah, I see,” replied the professor, “a Mendelian segregation, you mean?”

“Certainly,” said the colonel. “The sort of mind that imbibes things from itself.”

“Well, he’s rather wonderful,” declared the professor. “I had him to lunch to-day. He surprised me. I have invited him to make an address at Ames next winter during farmers’ week.”

“He?”

Jennie’s tone showed her astonishment. Jim the underling. Jim the off ox. Jim the thorn in the county superintendent’s side. Jim the country teacher! It was stupefying.

“Oh, you musn’t judge him by his looks,” said the professor. “I really do hope he’ll take some advice on the matter of clothes—put on a cravat and a different shirt and collar when he comes to Ames—but I have no doubt he will.”

“He hasn’t any other,” said the colonel.

“Well, it won’t signify, if he has the truth to tell us,” said the professor.

“Has he?” asked Jennie.

“Miss Woodruff,” replied the professor earnestly, “he has something that looks toward truth, and something that we need. Just how far he will go, just what he will amount to, it is impossible to say. But something must be done for the rural schools—something along the lines he is trying to follow. He is a struggling soul, and he is worth helping. You won’t make any mistake if you make the most of Mr. Irwin.”

Jim slipped out of a side door and fled. As in the case of the conversation between Mrs. Bronson and Mrs. Bonner, he was unable to discern the favorable auspices in the showing of adverse things. He had not sensed Mrs. Bronson’s half-concealed friendliness for him, though it was disagreeably plain to Mrs. Bonner. And now he neglected the colonel’s evident support of him, and Professor Withers’ praise, in Jennie’s manifest surprise that old Jim had been accorded the recognition of a place on a college program, and the professor’s criticism of his dress and general appearance.

It was unjust! What chance had he been given to discover what it was fashionable to wear, even if he had had the money to buy such clothes as other young men possessed? He would never go near Ames! He would stay in the Woodruff District where the people knew him, and some of them liked him. He would finish his school year, and go back to work on the farm. He would abandon the struggle.

He started home, on foot as he had come, A mile or so out he was overtaken by the colonel, driving briskly along with room in his buggy for Jim.

“Climb in, Jim!” said he. “Dan and Dolly didn’t like to see you walk.”

“They’re looking fine,” said Jim.

There is a good deal to say whenever two horse lovers get together. Hoofs and coats and frogs and eyes and teeth and the queer sympathies between horse and man may sometimes quite take the place of the weather for an hour or so. But when Jim had alighted at his own door, the colonel spoke of what had been in his mind all the time.

“I saw Bonner and Haakon and Ez doing some caucusing to-day,” said he. “They expect to elect Bonner to the board again.”

“Oh, I suppose so,” replied Jim.

“Well, what shall we do about it?” asked the colonel.

“If the people want him—” began Jim.

“The people,” said the colonel, “must have a choice offered to ’em, or how can you or any man tell what they want? How can they tell themselves?”

Jim was silent. Here was a matter on which he really had no ideas except the broad and general one that truth is mighty and shall prevail—but that the speed of its forward march is problematical.

“I think,” said the colonel, “that it’s up to us to see that the people have a chance to decide. It’s really Bonner against Jim Irwin.”

“That’s rather startling,” said Jim, “but I suppose it’s true. And much chance Jim Irwin has!”

“I calculate,” rejoined the colonel, “that what you need is a champion.”

“To do what?”

“To take that office away from Bonner.”

“Who can do that?”

“Well, I’m free to say I don’t know that any one can, but I’m willing to try. I think that in about a week I shall pass the word around that I’d like to serve my country on the school board.”

Jim’s face lighted up—and then darkened.

“Even then they’d be two to one, Colonel.”

“Maybe,” replied the colonel, “and maybe not. That would have to be figured on. A cracked log splits easy.”

“Anyhow,” Jim went on, “what’s the use? I shan’t be disturbed this year—and after that—what’s the use?”

“Why, Jim,” said the colonel, “you aren’t getting short of breath are you? Do I see frost on your boots? I thought you good for the mile, and you aren’t turning out a quarter horse, are you? I don’t know what all it is you want to do, but I don’t, believe you can do it in nine months, can you?”

“Not in nine years!” replied Jim.

“Well, then, let’s plan for ten years,” said the colonel. “I ain’t going to become a reformer at my time of life as a temporary job. Will you stick if we can swing the thing for you?”

“I will,” said Jim, in the manner of a person taking the vows in some solemn initiation.

“All right,” said the colonel. “We’ll keep quiet and see how many votes we can muster up at the election. How many can you speak for?”

Jim gave himself for a few minutes to thought. It was a new thing to him, this matter of mustering votes—and a thing which he had always looked upon as rather reprehensible. The citizen should go forth with no coercion, no persuasion, no suggestion, and vote his sentiments.

“How many can you round up?” persisted the colonel.

“I think,” said Jim, “that I can speak for myself and Old Man Simms!”

The colonel laughed.

“Fine politician!” he repeated. “Fine politician! Well, Jim, we may get beaten in this, but if we are, let’s not have them going away picking their noses and saying they’ve had no fight. You round up yourself and Old Man Simms and I’ll see what I can do—I’ll see what I can do!”