The Agricultural Representative, observing Billy’s nomadic habits, tore out of the office after him one day and called him back.
“It seems to me, if you have so much time for running around, as no other decent farmer in the neighborhood has,” he remarked, “you might as well be running to some purpose. I have a lot of school plots to judge at odd points through the county. By driving a few miles out of your way each trip, you might be able to make the work interesting for yourself, and it would save the time of a man who really has something to do. I thought perhaps, if you were on your way to the city, you might call for Miss Macdonald and take her along. It would give her an opportunity to do some of the research work she’ll need when she comes out to help in the office here.”
And he grinned the wider when he saw that the suggestion stirred only a response of pity.
“Sorry you had counted on that,” the generous one replied. He felt that he could afford to be compassionate.
Their first judging trip took them to a neighborhood far back from the town. A group of three houses banked close to a railway siding, a post office, a blacksmith shop and a farm house marked the centre of the community, with well-tilled farms all about. The school was there,
too, but something that was evidently an addition to the building arrested their attention.
But the thing didn’t look like a new building. Stranger still, it was set on wheels. On closer view, it was frankly and simply, a passenger coach from the railway, apparently a derelict for travelling purposes, stranded in the centre of a grass-grown school-yard, flying a flag, and docilely bearing the inscription “Nestleville School Annex—1921.”
They climbed up and looked in at the windows. There it was—seated, blackboarded along one side, a room equipped to take care of some forty children.
“Now, I wonder how this happened. For the sake of the research work you’re supposed to be doing, wouldn’t you like to drop in on Mrs. Terryberry and get her to tell you about it?” Billy suggested.
Mrs. Terryberry was delighted to tell them about it. A busy enough farmer’s wife, she could find time to drop her work for a chat at any hour of the day, and she could always catch up with the time she had lost before the day ended. A half-hour’s gossip revived her like a refreshing sleep, strangely enough, since she did all the talking herself. She met them at “the little gate” when they drove up the lane, ushered them into the house, in spite of their protests, and settled them and herself comfortably in her cool, herb-scented