After supper the comely Amanda agreed eagerly to the teacher's suggestion that she go with him for a walk, before the convening of the School Board at seven o'clock, and show him the school-house, as he would like to behold, he said, "the seat of learning" which, if the Board elected him, was to be the scene of his winter's campaign.
Amanda improved this opportunity to add her word of warning to that of the doctor.
"That there Board's awful hard to suit, still. Oncet they got a Millersville Normal out here, and when she come to sign they seen she was near-sighted that way, and Nathaniel Puntz—he's a director—he up and says that wouldn't suit just so well, and they sent her back home. And here oncet a lady come out to apply and she should have sayed [she is reported to have said] she was afraid New Canaan hadn't no accommodations good enough fur her, and the directors ast her, 'Didn't most of our Presidents come out of log cabins?' So they wouldn't elect her. Now," concluded Amanda, "you see!"
"Thanks for your warning. Can you give me some pointers?"
"What's them again?"
"Well, I must not be near-sighted, for one thing, and I must not demand 'all the modern improvements.' Tell me what manner of man this School Board loves and admires. To be in the dark as to their tastes, you know—"
"You must make yourself nice and common," Amanda instructed him. "You haven't dare to put on no city airs. To be sure, I guess they come a good bit natural to you, and, as mom says still, a body can't help fur their dispositions; but our directors is all plain that way and they don't like tony people that wants to come out here and think they're much!"
"Yes? I see. Anything else?"
"Well, they'll be partic'lar about your bein' a perfessor."
"How do you mean?"