“There’s an empty calf shed over at the ranch that would make a better schoolhouse than this,” he observed. “It’s got a shingle roof.”
Mary Hope was picking small lumps of dirt out of her hair, which she wore in a pompadour that disclosed a very nice forehead. “I just love a roof with shingles on it,” she smiled.
“H’m.” Tom looked up at the sagging poles with the caked mud showing in the cracks between where the poles had shrunken and warped under the weight. A fresh gust of wind rattled dust into his eyes, and the oldest Swede chortled an abrupt “Ka-hugh!” that set the other six tittering.
“Silence! Shame on you!” Mary Hope reproved them sternly, rapping on the kitchen table with a foot rule of some soft wood that blazoned along its length the name of a Pocatello hardware store. “Get to work this instant or I shall be compelled to keep you all in at recess.”
“You better haze ’em all home at recess, and get where it’s warm before you catch your death of cold,” Tom advised, giving first aid to his eye with a corner of his white-dotted blue handkerchief. “This ain’t fit for cattle, such a day as this.”
“A north wind like this would blow through 107 anything,” Mary Hope loyally defended the shack. “It was quite comfortable yesterday.”
“I wouldn’t send a dog here to school,” said Tom. “Can’t they dig up any better place than this for you to teach in?”
“The parents of these children are paying out of their own pockets to have them taught, as it is.”
“They’ll be paying out of their own pockets to have them planted, if they ain’t careful,” Tom predicted dryly. “How’re you fixed for firewood? Got enough to keep warm on a hot day?”
Mary Hope smiled faintly. “Mr. Boyle hauled us a load of sage brush, and the boys chop wood mornings and noons––it’s a punishment when they don’t behave, or if they miss their lessons. But––the stove doesn’t seem to draw very well, in this wind. It smokes more than it throws out heat.” She added hastily, “It drew all right yesterday. It’s this wind.”