“This has been rather extraordinary,” said Jim, “but I am very glad you were here. It shows the utility of the right sort of work in letter-writing, language, geography and arithmetic—in learning things about farming.”
“It certainly does,” said Doctor Brathwayt. “I wouldn’t have missed it under any consideration; but I’m certainly sorry for that creamery shark and his accomplice—to be routed by the Fifth Reader grade in farming!”
The luncheon was rather a wonderful affair—and its success was unqualified after everybody discovered that the majority of those in attendance felt much more at home when calling it dinner. Colonel Woodruff had fought against the regiment of the father of Professor Gray, of Georgia, in at least one engagement, and tentative plans were laid for the meeting of the two old veterans “some winter in the future.”
“What d’ye think of our school?” asked the colonel.
“Well,” said Professor Gray, “it’s not fair to judge, Colonel, on what must have been rather an extraordinary moment in the school’s history. I take it that you don’t put on a representation of ‘The Knave Unmasked’ every morning.”
“It was more like a caucus than I’ve ever seen it, daddy,” said Jennie, “and less like a school.”
“Don’t you think,” said Doctor Brathwayt, “that it was less like a school because it was more like life? It was life. If I am not mistaken, history for this community was making in that schoolroom as we entered.”
“You’re perfectly right, Doctor,” said the colonel. “Columbus Brown and about a dozen others living outside the district are calling Wilbur Smythe in counsel to perfect plans for an election to consolidate a few of these little independent districts, for the express purpose of giving Jim Irwin a plant that he can do something with. Jim’s got too big for the district, and so we’re going to enlarge the district, and the schoolhouse, and the teaching force, and the means of educational grace generally. That’s as sure as can be—after what took place this morning.”
“He’s rather a wonderful person, to be found in such a position,” said Professor Gray, “or would be in any region I have visited.”
“He’s a native product,” said the colonel, “but a wonder all the same. He’s a Brown Mouse, you know.”