“They have made the American people what they are,” said Jennie. “Don’t be unpatriotic, Jim.”
“They have educated our farm children for the cities,” said Jim. “This county is losing population—and it’s the best county in the world.”
“Pessimism never wins,” said Jennie.
“Neither does blindness,” answered Jim. “It is losing the farms their dwellers, and swelling the cities with a proletariat.”
For some time, now, Jim had ceased to hold Jennie’s hand; and their sweetheart days had never seemed farther away.
“Jim,” said Jennie, “I may be elected to a position in which I shall be obliged to pass on your acts as teacher—in an official way, I mean. I hope they will be justifiable.”
Jim smiled his slowest and saddest smile.
“If they’re not, I’ll not ask you to condone them,” said he. “But first, they must be justifiable to me, Jennie.”
“Good night,” said Jennie curtly, and left him.
Jennie, I am obliged to admit, gave scant attention to the new career upon which her old sweetheart seemed to be entering. She was in politics, and was playing the game as became the daughter of a local politician. The reader must not by this term get the impression that Colonel Woodruff was a man of the grafting tricky sort of which we are prone to think when the term is used. The West has been ruled by just such men as he, and the West has done rather well, all things considered. Colonel Albert Woodruff went south with the army as a corporal in 1861, and came back a lieutenant. His title of colonel was conferred by appointment as a member of the staff of the governor, long years ago, when he was county auditor. He was not a rich man, as I may have suggested, but a well-to-do farmer, whose wife did her own work much of the time, not because the colonel could not afford to hire “help,” but for the reason that “hired girls” were hard to get.