himself, was filled with the grandeur of the sparkling sky, its vast
moon, plowing like an astronomical liner through the cloudlets of a
wool-pack. He pointed out the great open spaces in the Milky Way,
wondering at their emptiness, and at the fact that no telescope can find
stars in them.

They stopped and looked. Jim laid his hard hands on the shoulders of her
white fur collarette.

"What's the use of political meetings," said Jim, "when you and I can
stand here and think our way out, even beyond the limits of our
Universe?"

"A wonderful journey," said she, not quite understanding his mood, but
very respectful to it.

"And together," said Jim. "I'd like to go on a long, long journey with you
to-night, Jennie, to make up for the years since we went anywhere
together."

"And we shouldn't have come together to-night," said Jennie, getting back
to earth, "if I hadn't exercised my leap-year privilege."

She slipped her arm in his, and they went on in a rather intimate way.

"I'm not to blame, Jennie," said he. "You know that at any time I'd have
given anything--anything--"

"And even now," said Jennie, taking advantage of his depleted stock of
words, "while we roam beyond the Milky Way, we aren't getting any votes
for me for county superintendent."

Jim said nothing. He was quite, quite reestablished on the earth.

"Don't you want me to be elected, Jim?"

Jim seemed to ponder this for some time--a period of taking the matter
under advisement which caused Jennie to drop his arm and busy herself with
her skirts.

"Yes," said Jim, at last; "of course I do."

Nothing more was said until they reached the schoolhouse door.

"Well," said Jennie rather indignantly, "I'm glad there are plenty of
voters who are more enthusiastic about me than you seem to be!"

More interesting to a keen observer than the speeches, were the unusual
things in the room itself. To be sure, there were on the blackboards
exercises and outlines, of lessons in language, history, mathematics,
geography and the like. But these were not the usual things taken from
text-books. The problems in arithmetic were calculations as to the feeding
value of various rations for live stock, records of laying hens and
computation as to the excess of value in eggs produced over the cost of
feed. Pinned to the wall were market reports on all sorts of farm
products, and especially numerous were the statistics on the prices of
cream and butter. There were fi