"I don't want to get into trouble here," said I, "but I insist upon fair treatment and I'm going to have it."
"All right, sir. Now, what is it you want to know?"
"Why, I was told that there was an opening for a school teacher in this neighborhood."
"And so there is, but don't you know that no neighborhood could be proud of such a fact? Therefore, you ought to be more careful as to how you make your inquiries."
I saw that he wanted to joke with me and I joked with him. And I soon found that this was the right course, for he invited me into his office and insisted upon my sharing his luncheon, cold bread and meat and a tin bucket of boiling coffee. I soon learned that he was newly graduated from a school of telegraphy, and that this was his first position. He had come from a city and he gave me the impression that he was buried alive; he said that he had entered an oath in his book that if some one didn't get off at his station pretty soon he would set the whole thing on fire and turn train robber. "Don't you think that would be a pretty good idea?" he asked, laughing.
"It would be a pretty dangerous one, at least," I answered.
"Yes, but without danger there is never any fun. My old man insisted upon my taking that night-school course; and the professor of the institution held out the idea that I could be a great man within a short time after graduating; led me to believe I could get charge of a big office in town, but here I am stuck up here in these hills. No rags about here at all."
"No what?"
"Rags, calico, women—catch on?"
"You mean no society, to speak of."