“The more personal, the better it will be told,” I said with a nod.
“Then,” she said, as she pointed to a chair with an inviting air, and proceeded to deposit herself into a comfortable rocker, “I will tell you one that is founded on facts.”
“I, like all girls, was once in love.”
“Once,” said I, as I looked around the room of the neatly furnished cottage in which we sat, finally resting my eyes on the crayon portrait of a man, whose face, though not handsome, denoted such honest industry that it was easy for me to imagine that he would love the woman of his choice devotedly, that unless she was a woman of barbarous mind she must at least love him out of gratitude.
“Yes, that is my husband; I can read your thoughts,” she said, with no show of further attention to the interrupting gaze, “and thereby hangs a tale.”
“This is my home, and the price I paid for it should have been the means of my presiding over a palace. I grew from the ranks of blithesome, prattling childhood to the age of sixteen, on a farm; wild roses and butterflies were my companions in the summer months, while the winter days were spent in school. I was thrown much into the society of a young man, who had come to our neighborhood as an applicant for the position of school teacher; at the time of his introduction into the district my father was a candidate for the office of township trustee; that worthy official has a great deal to do with the selection of the pedagogues, and it was well understood that if a teacher in search of a place find favor in the eyes of the superior officers of the township, his success was assured.
“It had been the custom up to this time to employ lady teachers in the rural districts, but when Roy Sunderman came on the field he came to win. It was generally believed that my father would have little or no opposition in his race for office, but when he was questioned on the policy of changing from female to male teachers, he was so indiscreet as to commit himself in favor of male instructors; this turned the tide against him, and public sentiment threatened to defeat him.
“It was nearing the time for election; no time was to be lost. One evening a neighbor of ours called to take me for a drive and incidentally to a lawn social, which was to be held a few miles from my father’s home. After we had gotten fairly started, my escort, who was a well-to-do farmer’s son, told me that some of the school and political directors had met at his father’s house on the night previous, and had besieged his father to make the race for trustee against my father, ‘But I hope he won’t,’ said he.
“‘Why,’ I asked.
“‘Because I—I—don’t want our people to oppose each other in any manner,’ said he.