Newton darted off, leaving the schoolmaster standing in the road with the county superintendent.
"I'm proud of you, Jim," said Jennie. "This community has found its master. They can't do all you ask now, nor very soon; but finally they'll do just as you want them to do. And, Jim, I want to say that I've been the biggest little fool in the county!"
Superintendent Jennie sat at her desk in no very satisfactory frame of mind. In the first place court was to convene on the following Monday, and both grand jury and petit juries would be in session, so that her one-room office was not to be hers for a few days. Her desk was even now ready to be moved into the hall by the janitor. To Wilbur Smythe, who did her the honor of calling occasionally as the exigencies of his law practise took him past the office of the pretty country girl on whose shapely shoulders rested the burden of the welfare of the schools, she remarked that if they didn't soon build the new court-house so as to give her such accommodations as her office really needed, "they might take their old office--so there!"
"Fair woman," said Wilbur, as he creased his Prince Albert in a parting bow, "should adorn the home!"
"Bosh!" sneered Jennie, rather pleased, all the same, "suppose she isn't fair, and hasn't any home!"
This question of adorning a home was no nearer settlement with Jennie than it had ever been, though increasingly a matter of speculation.
There were two or three men--rather good catches, too--who, if they were encouraged--but what was there to any of them? Take Wilbur Smythe, now; he would by sheer force of persistent assurance and fair abilities eventually get a good practise for a country lawyer--three or four thousand a year--serve in the legislature or the state senate, and finally become a bank director with a goodly standing as a safe business man; but what was there to him? This is what Jennie asked her paper-weight as she placed it on a pile of unfinished examination papers. And the paper-weight echoed, "Not a thing out of the ordinary!" And then, said Jennie, "Well, you little simpleton, who and what are _you_ so out of the ordinary that you should sneer at Wilbur Smythe and Beckman Fifield and such men?" And echo answered, "What?"--and then the mail-carrier came in.