z I, "an' what's more, I know it. The' ain't no law ever
been framed up yet 'at can herd me in with the cows, an' I don't never
intend to act like a cow. I'm man to man wherever I am, an' a lot o'
you fellers with big outfits are beginnin' to forget that proposition;
but I don't forget it, an'--"

"Well, for heaven's sake," he yells, "I ain't tryin' to put a bit in
your mouth; though I must confess if I had my way about it, I'd like to
put a quart o' bran there sometimes. What I'm tryin' to do is to come
to an understandin' about the child."

"Hasn't she gone to school every day this term?" sez I.

"There's another thing," sez he. "When I told you to give that
schoolmaster a rawhidin', you wouldn't do it."

"Course I wouldn't do it," sez I. "He may have been in the right as far
as I know, an' anyway, she gave him the worst of it."

"I don't want her to give 'em the worst of it. I want her to act like a
gal child. Ridin' her pony into the schoolroom an' ropin' the master
ain't no way for a gal child to act. What I want is for the teachers to
play fair. It ain't reasonable to suppose 'at these mountains was ever
under water."

"You stood for it when the astronomer said so," sez I; "an' the
Bible sez so, an'--"

"Well, that's all right when it comes to grown-ups; but the' ain't no
use makin' a child say somethin' it don't nowise believe. The truth is
more important than a lot of water 'at dried up millions of years
ago--if it ever was here."

"Well, the truth is a heap o' bother to Barbie's teachers at the best,"
sez I. "Look at her spellin'--she comes upon a cross-bred word in a
book an' the teacher sez it's pronounced one way, an' you another, an'
me another, until she thinks we're all liars; and she knows it the next
day when she comes across another word spelled almost alike an'
pronounced just the opposite. How you goin' to teach a child to spell
an' be honest both?"

"It's a damned outrage!" sez Jabez, his eyes flashin'. "Take 'thought'
an' through,' an' 'though'--why, it's enough to ruin the morals of the
best child the' is. Hang it, I--"

"Well, you had your own way about it," sez I. "You've had three
different teachers here this term."

"Who built the school?" sez Jabez. "Didn't I build it with my own
money, just so I'd have it handy, an' didn't I offer to pay the teacher
if they'd put it right here at the ranch?"

"You ain't got money enough to bring the world here to her feet,
Jabez," sez I, "an