Fairchilds replied that he had never had any.
Tillie's heart sank as, from her post in the corner, she heard this answer. Would the members think for one moment of paying forty dollars a month to a teacher without experience? She was sure they had never before done so. They were shaking their heads gravely over it, she could see.
But the investigation proceeded.
"What was your Persuasion then?"
Tillie saw, in the teacher's hesitation, that he did not understand the question.
"My 'Persuasion'? Oh! I see. You mean my Church?"
"Yes, what's your conwictions?"
He considered a moment. Tillie hung breathlessly upon his answer. She knew how much depended upon it with this Board of "plain" people. Could he assure them that he was "a Bible Christian"? Otherwise, they would never elect him to the New Canaan school. He gave his reply, presently, in a tone suggesting his having at that moment recalled to memory just what his "Persuasion" was. "Let me see—yes—I'm a Truth-Seeker."
"What's that again?" inquired the president, with interest. "I have not heard yet of that Persuasion."
"A Truth-Seeker," he gravely explained, "is one who believes in—eh—in a progress from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity."