“A—a—?” Doctor Brathwayt was plainly astonished. And so the colonel was allowed to tell again the story of the Darbishire brown mice, and why he called Jim Irwin one. Doctor Brathwayt said it was an interesting Mendelian explanation of the appearance of such a character as Jim. “And if you are right, Colonel, you’ll lose him one of these days. You can’t expect to retain a Cæsar, a Napoleon, or a Lincoln in a rural school, can you?”
“I don’t know about that,” said the colonel. “The great opportunity for such a Brown Mouse may be in this very school, right now. He’d have as big an army right here as Socrates ever had. The Brown Mouse is the only judge of his own proper place.”
“I think,” said Mrs. Brathwayt, as they motored back to the school, “that your country schoolmaster is rather terrible. The way he crushed that Mr. Carmichael was positively merciless. Did he know how cruel he was?”
“I think not,” said Jennie. “It was the truth that crushed Mr. Carmichael.”
“But that vote of thanks,” said Mrs. Brathwayt. “Surely that was the bitterest irony.”
“I wonder if it was,” said Jennie. “No, I am sure it wasn’t. He wanted to leave the children thinking as well as possible of their victim, and especially of Mr. Bonner; and there was really something in Mr. Carmichael’s talk which could be praised. I have known Jim Irwin since we were both children, and I feel sure that if he had had any idea that his treatment of this man had been unnecessarily cruel, it would have given him a lot of pain.”
“My dear,” said Mrs. Brathwayt, “I think you are to be congratulated for having known for a long time a genius.”
“Thank you,” said Jennie. And Mrs. Brathwayt gave her a glance which brought to her cheek another blush; but of a different sort from the one provoked by the uproar in the Woodruff school.
There could be no doubt now that Jim was thoroughly wonderful—nor that she, the county superintendent, was quite as thoroughly a little fool. She to be put in authority over him! It was too absurd for laughter. Fortunately, she hadn’t hindered him much—but who was to be thanked for that? Was it owing to any wisdom of hers? Well, she had decided in his favor, in those first proceedings to revoke his certificate. Perhaps that was as good a thing to remember as was to be found in the record.