The office of county superintendent was, as a matter of course, the least desirable room of the court-house. I say “room” advisedly, because it consisted of a single chamber of moderate size, provided with office furniture of the minimum quantity and maximum age. It opened off the central hall at the upper end of the stairway which led to the court room, and when court was in session, served the extraordinary needs of justice as a jury room. At such times the county superintendent’s desk was removed to the hall, where it stood in a noisy and confusing but very democratic publicity. Superintendent Jennie might have anticipated the time when, during the March term, offenders passing from the county jail in the basement to arraignment at the bar of justice might be able to peek over her shoulders and criticize her method of treating examination papers. On the twenty-fifth of February, however, this experience lurked unsuspected in her official future.
Poor Jennie! She anticipated nothing more than the appearance of Messrs. Bronson, Peterson and Bonner in her office to confront Jim Irwin on certain questions of fact relating to Jim’s competency to hold a teacher’s certificate. The time appointed was ten o’clock. At nine forty-five Cornelius Bonner and his wife entered the office, and took twenty-five per cent. of the chairs therein. At nine fifty Jim Irwin came in, haggard, weather-beaten and seedy as ever, and looked as if he had neither eaten nor slept since his sweetheart stabbed him. At nine fifty-five Haakon Peterson and Ezra Bronson came in, accompanied by Wilbur Smythe, attorney-at-law, who carried under his arm a code of Iowa, a compilation of the school laws of the state, and Throop on Public Officers. At nine fifty-six, therefore, the crowd in Jennie’s office exceeded its seating capacity, and Jennie was in a flutter as the realization dawned upon her that this promised to be a bigger and more public affair than she had anticipated. At nine fifty-nine Raymond Simms opened the office door and there filed in enough children, large and small, some of them accompanied by their parents, and all belonging to the Woodruff school, to fill completely the interstices of the corners and angles of the room and between the legs of the grownups. In addition there remained an overflow meeting in the hall, under the command of that distinguished military gentleman, Colonel Albert Woodruff.
“Say, Bill, come here!” said the colonel, crooking his finger at the deputy sheriff.
“What you got here, Al!” said Bill, coming up the stairs, puffing. “Ain’t it a little early for Sunday-school picnics?”
“This is a school fight in our district,” said the colonel. “It’s Jennie’s baptism of fire, I reckon ... and say, you’re not using the court room, are you?”
“Nope,” said Bill.
“Well, why not just slip around, then,” said the colonel, “and tell Jennie she’d better adjourn to the big room.”
Which suggestion was acted upon instanter by Deputy Bill.
“But I can’t, I can’t,” said Jennie to the courteous deputy sheriff. “I don’t want all this publicity, and I don’t want to go into the court room.”
“I hardly see,” said Deputy Bill, “how you can avoid it. These people seem to have business with you, and they can’t get into your office.”