I was nonplused. It was harder than I thought, but I had a last suggestion which I put very timidly indeed.
“I have a letter from Mr. Emerson.”
He was adamant. “Which one?”
My voice almost disappeared in my throat, but I managed to stammer, “Ralph Waldo.”
“What!” he yelled, flinging his feet to the floor. “Let me see it!”
I handed it to him, and he turned to the end first, reading not a line of my recommendation from the Concord sage. But taking one look at the signature, he ran to the door of the saloon, shouting: “Say! Boys! Come here and meet the new ‘schoolmarm’ of Strawberry Valley! The drinks are on him!”
That was my examination.
And who can say that art is not more universal than riches, when an illiterate saloonkeeper recognizes the signature of a writer, but does not know the name of a wealthy railway president?
The schoolhouse was a half mile from Sissons, and some of the pupils came a distance of five or six miles. The building was situated in a heavy growth of pine and fir trees, and through this mass of great columns could be seen the fourteen thousand feet of Shasta. Four sugar pines growing in a square had been chosen as a basis and cut down so that the stumps made a foundation. On this the schoolhouse was built of the newly cut trees, leaving a space below which at once became the favorite hiding place of truants.
The pupils, of which there were thirteen, were of all ages, ranging from Ivy Sisson, five years old, to Dick White, a Hat Creek Indian of twenty-one. There were six Sullivans—girls in their teens, and Sammy, about eight. The first day’s examination proved that I had a class of varied accomplishments. Dick White could draw, paint, and play the violin well enough to be the musician at all the dances, but had no capacity for book learning and would not obey orders. In the midst of the examination he calmly walked out of the room and went home. The rest of the pupils were at various stages of “readin’, writin’, ’rithmetic,” until it came to Ivy. She piped up: