“A formal complaint against you for incompetency,” she replied, “has been lodged in my office, signed by the three directors. I shall be obliged to take notice of it.”
“And do you think,” queried Jim, “that my abandonment of the things in which I believe in the face of this attack would prove to your mind that I am competent? Or would it show me incompetent?”
Again Jennie was silent.
“I guess,” said Jim, “that we’ll have to stand or fall on things as they are.”
“Do you refuse to resign?” asked Jennie.
“Sometimes I think it’s not worth while to try any longer,” said Jim. “And yet, I believe that in my way I’m working on the question which must be solved if this nation is to stand—the question of making the farm and farm life what they should be and may well be. At this moment, I feel like surrendering—for your sake more than mine; but I’ll have to think about it. Suppose I refuse to resign?”
Jennie had drawn on her gloves, and stood ready for departure.
“Unless you resign before the twenty-fifth,” said she, “I shall hear the petition for your removal on that date. You will be allowed to be present and answer the charges against you. The charges are incompetency. I bid you good evening!”
“Incompetency!” The disgraceful word, representing everything he had always despised, rang through Jim’s mind as he walked home. He could think of nothing else as he sat at the simple supper which he could scarcely taste. Incompetent! Well, had he not always been incompetent, except in the use of his muscles? Had he not always been a dreamer? Were not all his dreams as foreign to life and common sense as the Milky Way from the earth? What reason was there for thinking that this crusade of his for better schools had any sounder foundation than his dream of being president, or a great painter, or a poet or novelist or philosopher? He was just a hayseed, a rube, a misfit, as odd as Dick’s hatband, an off ox. He was incompetent. He picked up a pen, and began writing. He wrote, “To the Honorable the Board of Education of the Independent District of ——” And he heard a tap at the door. His mother admitted Colonel Woodruff.
“Hello, Jim,” said he.