nd three hours
hunting these troubles, to one in fixing 'em up."

"Do they take much technical skill?" asked Jim.

"Mostly shakin' out crosses, and puttin' in new carbons in the arresters,"
replied the trouble man. "Any one ought to do any of 'em with five
minutes' instruction. But these farmers--they'd rather have me drive ten
miles to take a hair-pin from across the binding-posts than to do it
themselves. That's the way they are!"

"Will you be out here to-morrow?" queried the teacher.

"Sure!"

"I'd like to have you show my class in manual training something about the
telephone," said Jim. "The reason we can't fix our own troubles, if they
are as simple as you say, is because we don't know how simple they are."

"I'll tell you what I'll do, Professor," said the trouble man. "I'll bring
a phone with me and give 'em a lecture. I don't see how I can employ the
company's time any better than in beating a little telephone sense into
the heads of the community. Set the time, and I'll be there with bells."

Bettina and her teacher walked on up the shady lane, feeling that they had
a secret. They were very nearly on a parity as to the innocence of soul
with which they held this secret, except that Bettina was much more
single-minded toward it than Jim. To her he had been gradually attaining
the status of a hero whose clasp of her in that iron-armed way was
mysteriously blissful--and beyond that her mind had not gone. To Jim,
Bettina represented in a very sweet way the disturbing influences which
had recently risen to the threshold of consciousness in his being, and
which were concretely but not very hopefully embodied in Jennie Woodruff.

Thus interested in each other, they turned the corner which took them out
of sight of the lineman, and stopped at the shady avenue leading up to
Nils Hansen's farmstead. Little Hans Nilsen had disappeared by the simple
method of cutting across lots. Bettina's girlish instinct called for
something more than the casual good-by which would have sufficed
yesterday. She lingered, standing close by Jim Irwin.

"Won't you come in and let me clean the mud off you," she asked, "and give
you some dry socks?"

"Oh, no!" replied Jim. "It's almost as far to your house as it is home.
Thank you, no."

"There's a splash of mud on your face," said Bettina. "Let me--" And with
her little handkerchief she began wiping off the mud. Jim stooped to
permit the attention, but not much, for Bettina was