"A boy like Chester," said I, "will have little influence with Mr. Middlekauff, the director."
"Oh, cut it out, Oc!" burst in Chester. "I've got it all framed up to be elected director!"
"My political plans," said I, "will not allow of a breach between my family and Mr. Middlekauff."
"Well, mine do," retorted Chester. "You'll take your chances with the Middlekauffs, just as I do!"
It was not the occult influence, but a desire to benefit educational conditions, that led me to visit Miss Frayn's school the week Chester's insurgency placed her in it. My memory is hazy as to the matter, but my notes show that her weakness was in the matter of organization.
"Oh," said she, when I mentioned this, "do you all prefeh things so regulah and poky? It's so much mo' pleasant foh the little things to be free!" She called most of the little ones "Honey," and allowed much latitude in whispering and moving about. They crowded around her like ants to a lump of sugar. Some of them were beginning to evince a laxity of pronunciation, sounding the personal pronoun "I" like the interjection "Ah."
In a few days I went back—Chester sneered at me as I went by—to tell Miss Frayn of the necessity of teaching the effects of stimulants and narcotics according to the Iowa law. She was greatly surprised when I told her of this requirement.
"What, daily, Mr. Supe'intendent!" she exclaimed.
"Daily teaching," said I. "Our law requires it."
"It seems so unnecessa'y," she said in perplexity. "The young gentlemen will find out all about it in due time: and is it raght to expe'iment with the littlest ones? And wheiah shall I obtain the liquoh foh the demonstrations?"