s here at all hours, Jim."

Jim smiled his slow patient smile.

"We do break the union rules, I guess, Mrs. Bonner," said he; "there seems
to be more to do than we can get done during school hours."

"What right have ye," struck in Mrs. Bonner, "to be burning the district's
fuel, and wearing out the school's property out of hours like that--not
that it's anny of my business," she interposed, hastily, as if she had
been diverted from her chosen point of attack. "I just thought of it,
that's all. What we came for, Mr. Irwin, is to object to the way the
teachin's being done--corn and wheat, and hogs and the like, instead of
the learnin' schools was made to teach."

"Schools were made to prepare children for life, weren't they, Mrs.
Bonner?"

"To be sure," went on Mrs. Bonner, "I can see an' the whole district can
see that it's easier for a man that's been a farm-hand to teach farm-hand
knowledge, than the learnin' schools was set up to teach; but if so be he
hasn't the book education to do the right thing, we think he should get
out and give a real teacher a chance."

"What am I neglecting?" asked Jim mildly.

Mrs. Bonner seemed unprepared for the question, and sat for an instant
mute. Mrs. Peterson interposed her attack while Mrs. Bonner might be
recovering her wind.

"We people that have had a hard time," she said in a precise way which
seemed to show that she knew exactly what she wanted, "want to give our
boys and girls a chance to live easier lives than we lived. We don't want
our children taught about nothing but work. We want higher things."

"Mrs. Peterson," said Jim earnestly, "we must have first things first.
Making a living is the first thing--and the highest."

"Haakon and I will look after making a living for our family," said she.
"We want our children to learn nice things, and go to high school, and
after a while to the Juniwersity."

"And I," declared Jim, "will send out from this school, if you will let
me, pupils better prepared for higher schools than have ever gone from
it--because they will be trained to think in terms of action. They will go
knowing that thoughts must always be linked with things. Aren't your
children happy in school, Mrs. Peterson?"

"I don't send them to school to be happy, Yim," replied Mrs. Peterson,
calling him by the name most familiarly known to all of them; "I send them
to learn to be higher people than their father and mother. That's what
America means!"

"The