arned
the initial payment on his first eighty acres of prairie land as a hired
man on Colonel Woodruff's farm. Now he was a rather richer man than the
colonel, and not a little proud of his ascent to affluence. He was a
mild-spoken, soft-voiced Scandinavian, quite completely Americanized, and
possessed of that aptitude for local politics which makes so good a
citizen of the Norwegian and Swede. His influence was always worth fifty
to sixty Scandinavian votes in any county election. He was a good party
man and conscious of being entitled to his voice in party matters. This
seemed to him an opportunity for exerting a bit of political influence.

"Yennie," said he, "this man Yim Irwin needs to be lined up."

"Lined up! What do you mean?"

"The way he is doing in the school," said Haakon, "is all wrong. If you
can't line him up, he will make you trouble. We must look ahead. Everybody
has his friends, and Yim Irwin has his friends. If you have trouble with
him, his friends will be against you when we want to nominate you for a
second term. The county is getting close. If we go to conwention without
your home delegation it would weaken you, and if we nominate you, every
piece of trouble like this cuts down your wote. You ought to line him up
and have him do right."

"But he is so funny," said Jennie.

"He likes you," said Haakon. "You can line him up."

Jennie blushed, and to conceal her slight embarrassment, got out for the
purpose of cranking her machine.

"But if I can not line him up?" said she.

"I tank," said Haakon, "if you can't line him up, you will have a chance
to rewoke his certificate when you take office."

So Jim Irwin was to be crushed like an insect. The little local gearing of
the big party machine was to crush him. Jennie dimly sensed the tragedy of
it, but very dimly. Mainly she thought of Mr. Peterson's suggestion as to
"lining up" Jim Irwin as so thoroughly sensible that she gave it a good
deal of thought that day. She could not help feeling a little resentment
at Jim for following his own fads and fancies so far. We always resent the
necessity of crushing any weak creature which must needs be wiped out. The
idea that there could be anything fundamentally sane in his overturning of
the old and tried school methods under which both he and she had been
educated, was absurd to Jennie. To be sure, everybody had always favored
"more practical education," and Jim's farm arithmetic, farm physiology,
f