ble," said Jim, "for a man to do work
on the farm, or in the rural schools, that would make him a livelihood. If
he is only a field-hand, it ought to be possible for him to save money and
buy a farm."

"Pa's land is worth two hundred dollars an acre," said Jennie. "Six months
of your wages for an acre--even if you lived on nothing."

"No," he assented, "it can't be done. And the other thing can't, either.
There ought to be such conditions that a teacher could make a living."

"They do," said Jennie, "if they can live at home during vacations. _I_
do."

"But a man teaching in the country ought to be able to marry."

"Marry!" said Jennie, rather unfeelingly, I think. "_You_ marry!" Then
after remaining silent for nearly a minute, she uttered the
syllable--without the utterance of which this narrative would not have
been written. "_You_ marry! Humph!"

Jim Irwin rose from the bench tingling with the insult he found in her
tone. They had been boy-and-girl sweethearts in the old days at the
Woodruff schoolhouse down the road, and before the fateful time when
Jennie went "off to school" and Jim began to support his mother. They had
even kissed--and on Jim's side, lonely as was his life, cut off as it
necessarily was from all companionship save that of his tiny home and his
fellow-workers of the field, the tender little love-story was the sole
romance of his life. Jennie's "Humph!" retired this romance from
circulation, he felt. It showed contempt for the idea of his marrying. It
relegated him to a sexless category with other defectives, and badged him
with the celibacy of a sort of twentieth-century monk, without the honor
of the priestly vocation. From another girl it would have been bad enough,
but from Jennie Woodruff--and especially on that quiet summer night under
the linden--it was insupportable.

"Good night," said Jim--simply because he could not trust himself to say
more.

"Good night," replied Jennie, and sat for a long time wondering just how
deeply she had unintentionally wounded the feelings of her father's
field-hand; deciding that if he was driven from her forever, it would
solve the problem of terminating that old childish love affair which still
persisted in occupying a suite of rooms all of its own in her memory; and
finally repenting of the unpremeditated thrust which might easily have
hurt too deeply so sensitive a man as Jim Irwin. But girls are not usually
so made as to feel any very bitter remo