“Cows!” scoffed Mrs. Peterson. “If we leave you in this yob, Mr. Irwin, our children will know nothing but cows and hens and soils and grains—and where will the culture come in? How will our boys and girls appear when we get fixed so we can move to town? We won’t have no culture at all, Yim!”
“Culture!” exclaimed Jim. “Why—why, after ten years of the sort of school I would give you if I were a better teacher, and could have my way, the people of the cities would be begging to have their children admitted so that they might obtain real culture—culture fitting them for life in the twentieth century—”
“Don’t bother to get ready for the city children, Jim,” said Mrs. Bonner sneeringly, “you won’t be teaching the Woodruff school that long.”
All this time, the dark-faced Cracker had been glooming from a corner, earnestly seeking to fathom the wrongness he sensed in the gathering. Now he came forward.
“I reckon I may be making a mistake to say anything,” said he, “f’r we-all is strangers hyeh, an’ we’re pore; but I must speak out for Mr. Jim—I must! Don’t turn him out, folks, f’r he’s done mo’ f’r us than eveh any one done in the world!”
“What do you mean?” asked Mrs. Peterson.
“I mean,” said Raymond, “that when Mr. Jim began talking school to us, we was a pore no-’count lot without any learnin’, with nothin’ to talk about except our wrongs, an’ our enemies, and the meanness of the Iowa folks. You see we didn’t understand you-all. An’ now, we have hope. We done got hope from this school. We’re goin’ to make good in the world. We’re getting education. We’re all learnin’ to use books. My little sister will be as good as anybody, if you’ll just let Mr. Jim alone in this school—as good as any one. An’ I’ll he’p pap get a farm, and we’ll work and think at the same time, an’ be happy!”