If they were willing to concede to the foolish demands of the class, led by Clare Lenwell, and grant full credits in their branches of study, he would abide by their decision. The easiest way, after all, to quiet the thing, he said, might be to let the young folks have their way this time, and do better with the class next year. They could begin in time with them. As if Solomon himself could ever foresee what trivial demand and stubborn claim will be the author and finisher of the disturbance from year to year in the town's pride and glory—the high-school Senior class, and its Commencement affairs. The final vote to break the tie and make the verdict was purposely put on Jerry Swaim, who had more influence in the high school than the superintendent himself. Jerry protested, and asked for a more just agreement, finally spending a whole afternoon with Clare Lenwell in an effort to induce him to be a gentleman, offering, in return, all fairness and courtesy.
Young Lenwell's head was now too large for his body. He was the hero of the hour. Rule or ruin rested on this young Napoleon of the Sage Brush, divinely ordained to free the downtrodden youths of America from the iron heel and galling chains with which the faculty of the average American high school enthralls and degrades—and so forth, world without end.
This at least was Clare Lenwell's attitude from one o'clock P.M. to five o'clock P.M. of an unusually hot June day. At the stroke of five Jerry rose, with calm face, but a dangerously square chin, saying, in an untroubled tone:
"You may as well go. Good afternoon."
Young Lenwell walked out, the cock of the hour—until the next morning. Then all of the Seniors were recorded as having received full credits for graduation from all of the faculty—except one pupil, who lacked one teacher's signature. Clare Lenwell was held back by Miss Swaim, teacher of the mathematics department.
The earthquake followed.
In the session of the school board on the afternoon of Commencement Day Junius Brutus Ponk, who presided over the meeting, sat "as firm as Mount Olympus, or Montpelier, Vermont," he said, afterward; "the uncle Lenwell suffered eruption, Vesuviously; and the third man of us just cowed down, and shriveled up, and tried to slip out in the hole where the electric-light wire comes through the wall. But I fetched him back with a button-hook, knowin' he'd get lost in that wide passageway and his remains never be recovered to his family."
It was not, however, just a family matter now among the Lenwells. In the presence of the superintendent and Mrs. Bahrr, Miss Swaim was called to trial by her peers—the board of education. In this executive session, whose proceedings were not ever to be breathed—for York Macpherson would have the last man of them put in jail, he was that influential—Other Things Were Made Known—Things that, after the final settlement, became in time common property, and so forgotten.
Herein Stellar Bahrr's three years of pent-up anger at last found vent. She had been preparing for this event. She had adroitly set the trap for the first difficulty, that had its start in the Lenwell family, while she was doing their spring sewing. Incessantly and insidiously she laid her mines and strung her wires and stored her munitions, determined to settle once for all with the pretty, stuck-up girl who had held a whip over her for three whole years.
Charges were to be brought against Miss Swaim of a serious character, and she was to be tried and condemned in secret session and allowed to leave the town quietly. Nothing would be said aloud until she was gone.