hings they have found out in relation to
some of the sciences which are laid under contribution by farming?
Everything they do runs into numbers, and we do more arithmetic than the
course requires. There isn't any branch of study--not even poetry and art
and music--that isn't touched by life. If there is we haven't time for it
in the common schools. We work out from life to everything in the course
of study."

"Do you mean to assert," queried Jennie, "that while you have been doing
all this work which was never contemplated by those who have made up the
course of study, that you haven't neglected anything?"

"I mean," said Jim, "that I'm willing to stand or fall on an examination
of these children in the very text-books we are accused of neglecting."

Jennie looked steadily at Jim for a full minute, and at the clock. It was
nearly time for adjournment.

"How many pupils of the Woodruff school are here?" she asked. "All rise,
please!"

A mass of the audience, in the midst of which sat Jennie's father, rose at
the request.

"Why," said Jennie, "I should say we had a quorum, anyhow! How many will
come back to-morrow morning at nine o'clock, and bring your school-books?
Please lift hands."

Nearly every hand went up.

"And, Mr. Irwin," she went on, "will you have the school records, so we
may be able to ascertain the proper standing of these pupils?"

"I will," said Jim.

"Then," said Jennie, "we'll adjourn until nine o'clock. I hope to see
every one here. We'll have school here to-morrow. And, Mr. Irwin, please
remember that you state that you'll stand or fall on the mastery by these
pupils of the text-books they are supposed to have neglected."

"Not the mastery of the text," said Jim. "But their ability to do the work
the text is supposed to fit them for."

"Well," said Jennie, "I don't know but that's fair."

"But," said Mrs. Haakon Peterson, "we don't want our children brought up
to be yust farmers. Suppose we move to town--where does the culture come
in?"

* * * * *

The Chicago papers had a news item which covered the result of the
examinations; but the great sensation of the Woodruff District lay in the
Sunday feature carried by one of them.

It had a picture of Jim Irwin, and one of Jennie Woodruff--the latter
authentic, and the former gleaned from the morgue, and apparently the
portrait of a lumber-jack. There was also a very free treatment by the
car