KATHERINE TO THE WINNEBAGOS
Dec. 3, 19—.
Dear Winnies:
Hurray! I’m not fired. Why, I wasn’t I never will be able to figure out, but it’s so. A week after the Picnic the Board sat, but not on me. For a while I lived in hourly expectation of forcible eviction, but nothing happened, and I heard from Justice, who stands high in the favor of Elijah Butts and gets inside information about school matters, that nothing was going to be done about it. If Justice had any further details he wouldn’t divulge them.
Justice is a queer chap. Although he talks nonsense incessantly, you can get very little information out of him. And the way he puts up with all kinds of inconveniences without complaint is wonderful to me. He must be accustomed to far different surroundings, and yet from his attitude you’d think his little cabin out beyond the stables was the one place on earth he’d select for an abode. He never even mentioned the fact that the roof leaked badly until I went out there to fetch him and discovered him on top patching it. Then I went inside to see what else could be improved, and the bare, tumble-down-ness of the place struck me forcibly. Light shone through chinks in the walls, the door sill was warped one way and the door another, and there was no sign of the pane that had once been in the window. It was simply a dilapidated cabin, and made no pretence of being anything else. How he could live in it was more than I could see. No light at night but a kerosene lamp, no furniture except what he himself had made from boards, boxes and logs; no carpet on the rough, rotting floor. Why did he choose to live in this cell when he might have taken rooms with any of the school board members over in Spencer?
It was on this occasion that I saw the rough board table under the one window, strewn with pencils, compasses and sheets of paper covered with strange lines and figures.
“What’s this?” I asked curiously.
“Nothing, that amounts to anything,” replied Justice, with a queer, dry little laugh. “Once I was fool enough to believe that it did amount to something.” He swept the papers together and threw them face downward on the table.
“Tell me about it,” I said coaxingly, scenting a secret, possibly a clue to his past.
Justice stared out of the open door for a few moments, his shoulders slumped into a discouraged curve, his face moody and resentful. Then suddenly he threw back his head and squared his shoulders. “It’s nothing,” he said shortly. “Only, once I thought I had a brilliant idea, and tried to patent it. Then I found out I wasn’t as smart as I thought I was, that’s all.”
“What did you invent?” I asked.