the he'p every kid in this
settlement kin give him. He's the best friend I ever had. I'm a pore
ignerant boy, an' he teaches me how to do things that will make me
something."

"Darn it all!" said Newton.

"You know," said Raymond, "that you'd think mahgty small of me, if I'd
desert Mr. Jim Irwin."

"Well, then," replied Newton, seizing his traps and throwing them across
his shoulder, "come on with the traps, and shut up! What'll we do when the
school board gets Jennie Woodruff to revoke his certificate and make him
quit teachin', hey?"

"Nobody'll eveh do that," said Raymond. "I'd set in the schoolhouse do'
with my rifle and shoot anybody that'd come to th'ow Mr. Jim outen the
school."

"Not in this country," said Newton. "This ain't a gun country."

"But it orto be either a justice kentry, or a gun kentry," replied the
mountain boy. "It stands to reason it must be one 'r the otheh, Newton."

"No, it don't, neither," said Newton dogmatically.

"Why should they th'ow Mr. Jim outen the school?" inquired Raymond. "Ain't
he teachin' us right?"

Newton explained for the tenth time that his father, Mr. Con Bonner and
Mr. Haakon Peterson had not meant to hire Jim Irwin at all, but each had
voted for him so that he might have one vote. They were all against him
from the first, but they had not known how to get rid of him. Now,
however, Jim had done so many things that no teacher was supposed to do,
and had left undone so many things that teachers were bound by custom to
perform, that Newton's father and Mr. Bonner and Mr. Peterson had made up
up their minds that they would call upon him to resign, and if he
wouldn't, they would "turn him out" in some way. And the best way if they
could do it, would be to induce County Superintendent Woodruff, who didn't
like Jim since the speech he made at the political meeting, to revoke his
certificate.

"What wrong's he done committed?" asked Raymond. "I don't know what
teachers air supposed to do in this kentry, but Mr. Jim seems to be the
only shore-enough teacher I ever see!"

"He don't teach out of the books the school board adopted," replied
Newton.

"But he makes up better lessons," urged Raymond. "An' all the things we do
in school, he'ps us make a livin'."

"He begins at eight in the mornin'," said Newton, "an' he has some of us
there till half past five, and comes back in the evening. And every
Saturday, some of the kids are doin' something at the schoolhouse."