Jem scratched his head. “I ain’t never taught no one nothing in my life,” he commented.
“It’s this way,” the teacher went on. “Up at Washington and out at the State College they have been doing a lot of thinking and working with corn. They found, for instance, that if you pick seed corn carefully, you get a better crop than if you are careless in seed selection. They have also found that if you follow certain rules about planting and cultivation you get a better crop. For years the men at the Experiment Station and at Washington talked about these things in Farmers’ Bulletins. They established experiment farms, and demonstration farms, too. Lately they have been doing something more, and something which I think is better than anything so far—they have decided to have the boys teach their fathers how to raise corn.”
“Do you mean to say,” asked Jem, “that I could teach Dad anything about corn-raisin’?”
“Yes,” said the teacher, “you can, and, what is more, you will, won’t you?”
“Well,” said Jem, “I dunno.”
“Here is what we have to do,” said the teacher. “This year the county superintendent is going to offer prizes for the boy with the best acre of corn. He sends out rules. You have to plough a certain way, plant a certain way, and cultivate a certain way. If you do not follow the rules you are not allowed to stay in the contest. Now I’ll tell you what I want to do. The boys in this school are as smart, if not smarter, than the boys in any other school in the country; so I guess it is up to us to get some of those prizes right here at home.”
Jem was visibly interested. “Money prizes?” he asked.
“Yes, money prizes,” said the teacher. “The first prize will be fifty dollars.”
Jem’s eyes opened wide. “I’m in for that,” he said with conviction.
That night, when Jem sat down to supper, he broached the corn proposition to his father.