“Me? To fill out the term?” Elizabeth exclaimed in surprise. “What’s gone wrong with the school here? I don’t want a piece of a term, and I don’t want, ever, to teach in this district where I’ve gone to school.”
“Well, you’re goin’ to,” was the brief reply. “Your pa an’ me told ’em you’d take it.”
“But how does it happen that the school is without a teacher?” Elizabeth asked with curiosity, ignoring the curt disposal of her services. She was accustomed to the peremptory measures of her parents.
“Jake Ransom run him out. He just piked off after he got his money order cashed last Saturday mornin’.”
“And you expect me to take a school that’s all upside down from that kind of handling—and me without any experience?”
“You’ll take it an’ You’ll do your best, an’ we won’t hear no more about it. Here, ma, tie up this finger,” Mr. Farnshaw said. He had just come in from the barn in time to hear his daughter’s objections.
Later in the evening the directors came. Family pressure was strong, and with reluctance Elizabeth accepted the month yet to be taught. It would help with the interest, and that interest clouded the family sky to the horizon on every side now. Elizabeth was divided between a fear of inability to manage a demoralized school and the desire to add twenty-five dollars to the family revenue. In anticipation she saw the unruly boys supported and encouraged in insubordination by such as Sadie Crane, who was jealously ready to resent her—a former playmate—in the rôle of authority. And to put herself right with the governing board Elizabeth told the new director—Sadie’s own father—her fears on that score.
“They have played with me and we have had the sort of quarrels all children have, Mr. Crane, and I may not be able to manage them.”
Lon Crane was ignorant and uncouth, but big of heart, and the openness of the discussion pleased him.
“You jest take that school, young lady, an’ I’ll see that my end of th’ thing’s kep’ up. I’ll come over there an thrash every mother’s son of ’em if I have t’. I’d kind o’ like t’ lick a few of ’em anyhow, an’ if my young ones give any trouble, you jes’ stop in on your way home an’ I’ll see that it don’t never happen ag’in.”