e her to be a bad woman, that she took a taste of
whisky? I've done it myself!"

"That's different. Not that I approve your doing it. What do the
Scriptures tell us? 'Strong drink is a mocker'! But that's entirely
different from a teacher drinking with one of her own pupils."

"Yes, it does sound bad. Fern was silly, undoubtedly. But as a matter
of fact she's only a year or two older than Cy and probably a good many
years younger in experience of vice."

"That's--not--true! She is plenty old enough to corrupt him!

"The job of corrupting Cy was done by your sinless town, five years
ago!"

Mrs. Bogart did not rage in return. Suddenly she was hopeless. Her head
drooped. She patted her black kid gloves, picked at a thread of her
faded brown skirt, and sighed, "He's a good boy, and awful affectionate
if you treat him right. Some thinks he's terrible wild, but that's
because he's young. And he's so brave and truthful--why, he was one of
the first in town that wanted to enlist for the war, and I had to speak
real sharp to him to keep him from running away. I didn't want him to
get into no bad influences round these camps--and then," Mrs. Bogart
rose from her pitifulness, recovered her pace, "then I go and bring into
my own house a woman that's worse, when all's said and done, than any
bad woman he could have met. You say this Mullins woman is too young
and inexperienced to corrupt Cy. Well then, she's too young and
inexperienced to teach him, too, one or t'other, you can't have your
cake and eat it! So it don't make no difference which reason they fire
her for, and that's practically almost what I said to the school-board."

"Have you been telling this story to the members of the school-board?"

"I certainly have! Every one of 'em! And their wives I says to them,
''Tain't my affair to decide what you should or should not do with your
teachers,' I says, 'and I ain't presuming to dictate in any way, shape,
manner, or form. I just want to know,' I says, 'whether you're going
to go on record as keeping here in our schools, among a lot of innocent
boys and girls, a woman that drinks, smokes, curses, uses bad language,
and does such dreadful things as I wouldn't lay tongue to but you know
what I mean,' I says, 'and if so, I'll just see to it that the town
learns about it.' And that's what I told Professor Mott, too, being
superintendent--and he's a righteous man, not going autoing on the
Sabbath like the school-board members