of our
sisterhood who have grown old in the classroom. I can see myself reduced
to a bundle of nerves, irascible, worthless, ready for the scrap-pile
at, we will say, forty-two--only twenty years ahead of me! My work looks
so easy and I like it so much that I went in fright to the dictionary to
look up the definition of teacher. I find that I'm one who teaches or
instructs. Think of it--I! That definition should be revised to read,
'Teacher: one who, conveying certain information to others, reads in
fifty faces unanswerable questions as to the riddle of existence.'
'School: a place where the presumably wise are convinced of their own
folly.' Note well, my friend: I am a gray sister, in a gray serge suit
that fits, with white cuffs and collar, and with chalk on my fingers.
Oh, it's not what I'm required to teach, but what I'm going to learn
that worries me!"

Lueders's shop was not far from Sylvia's school and Allen devised many
excuses for waylaying her. His machine being forbidden, he hung about
until she appeared and trudged homeward with her. Often he came in a
glow from the cabinetmaker's and submitted for her judgment the
questions that had been debated that day at the shop. There was
something sweet and wistful and charming in his boyishness; and she was
surprised, as Harwood had been from the first, by the intelligence he
evinced in political and social questions. He demanded absolute answers
to problems that were perplexing wise men all over the world.

"If I could answer that," she would say to him, "I should be entitled to
a monument more enduring than brass. The comfort and happiness of
mankind isn't to be won in a day: we mustn't pull up the old tree till
we've got a new one planted and growing."

"The Great Experiment will turn out all right yet! Some fellow we never
heard of will give the lever a jerk some day, and there will be a rumble
and a flash and it will run perfectly," he asserted.

The state campaign got under way in October, and Harwood was often
discussed in relation to it. Allen always praised Dan extravagantly, and
was ever alert to defend him against her criticisms.

"My dad will run the roller over Bassett, but Dan will be smart enough
to get from under. It's the greatest show on earth--continuous
vaudeville--this politics! Dan's all right. He's got more brains than
Bassett. One of these days Dan will take a flop and land clean over in
the Thatcher camp. It's only a matter of time. Grat