“Nonsense!” I replied. “I carried your trunk upstairs in the hotel and you gave me a quarter.”
He stared, got blood red, and turned his back on me for the remainder of the evening.
Great news in town—the “schoolmarm” wasn’t coming back! I resolved to apply for the job, which paid seventy-five dollars a month. The board met in Yreka, which was thirty-seven miles north of Sissons, and I went in to see Mr. Jenkins, who was president, treasurer, and seemed to be the whole boss. Seated in his office, which was in back of his grocery store and had a door leading into the bar, he put his feet upon the table and heard my request.
“I want to teach the school at Strawberry Valley.”
I told him my name and that I had been educated at Harvard.
“Oh, I don’t know; you might lie about that,” he replied. “Have you ever been in jail?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, how do I know that?”
Searching around for some credentials to prove my honesty to this most suspicious man, I pulled out a letter from John Forbes, who was very influential and owned railways in the West. He looked it over and said:
“Yes, I remember hearing something about him, but how do I know you didn’t write it yourself?”