ed, and three benches with some kinda
shelf for their books, and the girl was using a strip of tar-paper for
a blackboard. But there was no water."

"Say, what sort of country is this Black Rim, anyway?" Lance studied
the end of his cigarette, lifting his left eyebrow just as his father
had done five minutes before. "I hope to heck I haven't come home to
remodel the morals of the country, or to strut around and play
college-young-man like a boob; but on the square, folks, it looks to
me as though the Rim needs a lesson in citizenship. It doesn't mean
anything in our lives, whether there is a schoolhouse in the country
or not. Belle has looked out for us boys, in the matter of learning
the rudiments and a good deal besides. Say, Belle, do you know they
took my voice and fitted a glee club to it? I was the glee. And a
real, live professor told me I had technique. I told him I must have
caught it changing climates--but however, what you couldn't give us
with the books, you handed us with the quirt--and here and now I want
to say I appreciate it."

"All right, I appreciate your appreciation, and I wish to heaven you
wouldn't ramble all over the range when you start to say a thing.
That's one thing you learned in school that I'd like to take outa you
with a quirt."

"I was merely pointing out how we, ourselves, personally, do not need
a schoolhouse. But I was also saying that the Rim ought to have a
lesson in real citizenship. They call the Lorrigans bad. All right;
that's a fine running start. I'd say, let's give 'em a jolt. I'm game
to donate a couple of steers toward a schoolhouse--a _regular_
schoolhouse, with the Stars and Stripes on the front end, and a bench
behind the door for the water bucket, and a blackboard up in front,
and a woodshed behind--with a door into it so the schoolmarm needn't
put on her overshoes and mittens every time she tells one of the
Swedes to put a stick of wood in the stove. I'd like to do that, and
not say a darn word until it's ready to move into. And then I'd like
to stick my hands in my pockets and watch what the Rim would do about
it.

"I've wondered quite a lot, in the last two years, whether it's the
Black Rim or the Lorrigan outfit that's all wrong. I know all about
grandad and all the various and sundry uncles and forbears that earned
us the name of being bad; it makes darn interesting stuff to tell now
and then to some of the fellows who were raised in a prune orchard and
will