one in this district wants to know
about their cows they'll have to come to this shop. And I can tell you
that it'll pay 'em to come too, if they're going to make anything selling
cream. Wait until we get out our reports on the herds, ma!"

The women were rather stampeded by this onslaught of the irregular
troops--especially Mrs. Bronson. She was placed in the position of a woman
taking a man's wisdom from her ne'er-do-well son for the first time in her
life. Like any other mother in this position, she felt a flutter of
pride--but it was strongly mingled with a motherly desire to spank him.
The deputation rose, with a unanimous feeling that they had been scored
upon.

"Cows!" scoffed Mrs. Peterson. "If we leave you in this yob, Mr. Irwin,
our children will know nothing but cows and hens and soils and grains--and
where will the culture come in? How will our boys and girls appear when we
get fixed so we can move to town? We won't have no culture at all, Yim!"

"Culture!" exclaimed Jim. "Why--why, after ten years of the sort of school
I would give you if I were a better teacher, and could have my way, the
people of the cities would be begging to have their children admitted so
that they might obtain real culture--culture fitting them for life in the
twentieth century--"

"Don't bother to get ready for the city children, Jim," said Mrs. Bonner
sneeringly, "you won't be teaching the Woodruff school that long."

All this time, the dark-faced Cracker had been glooming from a corner,
earnestly seeking to fathom the wrongness he sensed in the gathering. Now
he came forward.

"I reckon I may be making a mistake to say anything," said he, "f'r we-all
is strangers hyeh, an' we're pore; but I must speak out for Mr. Jim--I
must! Don't turn him out, folks, f'r he's done mo' f'r us than eveh any
one done in the world!"

"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Peterson.

"I mean," said Raymond, "that when Mr. Jim began talking school to us, we
was a pore no-'count lot without any learnin', with nothin' to talk about
except our wrongs, an' our enemies, and the meanness of the Iowa folks.
You see we didn't understand you-all. An' now, we have hope. We done got
hope from this school. We're goin' to make good in the world. We're
getting education. We're all learnin' to use books. My little sister will
be as good as anybody, if you'll just let Mr. Jim alone in this school--as
good as any one. An' I'll he'p pap get a farm, and we'll work and