“He?”
Jennie’s tone showed her astonishment. Jim the underling. Jim the off ox. Jim the thorn in the county superintendent’s side. Jim the country teacher! It was stupefying.
“Oh, you musn’t judge him by his looks,” said the professor. “I really do hope he’ll take some advice on the matter of clothes—put on a cravat and a different shirt and collar when he comes to Ames—but I have no doubt he will.”
“He hasn’t any other,” said the colonel.
“Well, it won’t signify, if he has the truth to tell us,” said the professor.
“Has he?” asked Jennie.
“Miss Woodruff,” replied the professor earnestly, “he has something that looks toward truth, and something that we need. Just how far he will go, just what he will amount to, it is impossible to say. But something must be done for the rural schools—something along the lines he is trying to follow. He is a struggling soul, and he is worth helping. You won’t make any mistake if you make the most of Mr. Irwin.”
Jim slipped out of a side door and fled. As in the case of the conversation between Mrs. Bronson and Mrs. Bonner, he was unable to discern the favorable auspices in the showing of adverse things. He had not sensed Mrs. Bronson’s half-concealed friendliness for him, though it was disagreeably plain to Mrs. Bonner. And now he neglected the colonel’s evident support of him, and Professor Withers’ praise, in Jennie’s manifest surprise that old Jim had been accorded the recognition of a place on a college program, and the professor’s criticism of his dress and general appearance.
It was unjust! What chance had he been given to discover what it was fashionable to wear, even if he had had the money to buy such clothes as other young men possessed? He would never go near Ames! He would stay in the Woodruff District where the people knew him, and some of them liked him. He would finish his school year, and go back to work on the farm. He would abandon the struggle.
He started home, on foot as he had come, A mile or so out he was overtaken by the colonel, driving briskly along with room in his buggy for Jim.