mebbe feelin' oneasy, Teacher,
about meetin' the school directors to-night? You know they meet here in
the HOtel parlor at seven o'clock to take a look at you; and if you
suit, then you and them signs the agreement."

"And if I don't suit?"

"They'll turn you down and send you back home!" promptly answered the
doctor. "That there Board ain't conferrin' William Penn on no one where
don't suit 'em pretty good! They're a wonderful partic'lar Board!"

After supper the comely Amanda agreed eagerly to the teacher's
suggestion that she go with him for a walk, before the convening of the
School Board at seven o'clock, and show him the school-house, as he
would like to behold, he said, "the seat of learning" which, if the
Board elected him, was to be the scene of his winter's campaign.

Amanda improved this opportunity to add her word of warning to that of
the doctor.

"That there Board's awful hard to suit, still. Oncet they got a
Millersville Normal out here, and when she come to sign they seen she
was near-sighted that way, and Nathaniel Puntz--he's a director--he up
and says that wouldn't suit just so well, and they sent her back home.
And here oncet a lady come out to apply and she should have sayed [she
is reported to have said] she was afraid New Canaan hadn't no
accommodations good enough fur her, and the directors ast her, 'Didn't
most of our Presidents come out of log cabins?' So they wouldn't elect
her. Now," concluded Amanda, "you see!"

"Thanks for your warning. Can you give me some pointers?"

"What's them again?"

"Well, I must not be near-sighted, for one thing, and I must not demand
'all the modern improvements.' Tell me what manner of man this School
Board loves and admires. To be in the dark as to their tastes, you
know--"

"You must make yourself nice and common," Amanda instructed him. "You
haven't dare to put on no city airs. To be sure, I guess they come a
good bit natural to you, and, as mom says still, a body can't help fur
their dispositions; but our directors is all plain that way and they
don't like tony people that wants to come out here and think they're
much!"

"Yes? I see. Anything else?"

"Well, they'll be partic'lar about your bein' a perfessor."

"How do you mean?"

Amanda looked at him in astonishment. "If you're a perfessor or no.
They'll be sure to ast you."

Mr. Fairchilds thoughtfully considered it.

"You mean," he said, light coming to him, "they will ask me whether I