Some of these things came out in the speeches following the repast--and some other things, too. It was probably not quite fair for B. B. Hamm to incorporate in his wishes for the welfare and prosperity and so forth of Jim and Jennie that stale one about the troubles of life, but he wanted to see Jennie blush--which as a matter of fact he did; but she failed to grow quite so fiery red as did Jim. But B. B. was a good fellow, and a Trojan in his work for the cause, and the schoolmaster and superintendent of schools forgave him. A remark may be a little broad, and still clean, and B. B. made a clean speech mainly devoted to the increased value of that farm he at one memorable time was going to sell before Jim's fool notions could be carried out.
Colonel Woodruff made most of the above points which I have niched from him. He had begun as a reformer late in life, he said, but he would leave it to them if he hadn't worked at the trade steadily after enlistment. He had become a follower of Jim Irwin, because Jim's reform was like dragging the road in front of your own farm--it was reform right at home, and not at the county seat, or Des Moines, or Washington. He had followed Jim Irwin as he had followed Lincoln, and Grant, and Blaine, and McKinley--because Jim Irwin stood for more upward growth for the average American citizen than the colonel could see any prospect of getting from any other choice. And he was proud to live in a country like this, saved and promoted by the great men he had followed, and in a neighborhood served and promoted, if not quite saved, by Jim Irwin. And he was not so sure about its not being saved. Every man and nation had to be saved anew every so often, and the colonel believed that Jim Irwin's new kind of rural school is just as necessary to the salvation of this country as Lincoln's new kind of recognition of human rights was half a century ago. "I am about to close my speech," said the colonel, "and the small service I have been able to give to this nation. I went through the war, neighbors--and am proud of it; but I've done more good in the peaceful service of the last three years than I did in four of fighting and campaigning. That's the way I feel about what we've done in Consolidated District Number One." (Vociferous and long-continued applause.)