As the little ones finished their recitations, they passed to the dishes of wheat, and began aiding Raymond's squad in the counting and classifying of the various seeds. They counted to five, and they counted the fives. They laughed in a subdued way, and whispered constantly, but nobody seemed disturbed.
"Do they help much, Calista?" asked the teacher, as the oldest Simms girl came to his desk for more wheat.
"No, seh, not much," replied Calista, beaming, "but they don't hold us back any--and maybe they do he'p a little."
"That's good," said Jim, "and they enjoy it, don't they?"
"Oh, yes, Mr. Jim," assented Calista, "and the way Buddy is learnin' to count is fine! They-all will soon know all the addition they is, and a lot of multiplication. Angie Talcott knows the kinds of seeds better'n what I do!"
The day passed. Four o'clock came. In order that all might reach home for supper, there was no staying, except that Newt Bronson and Raymond Simms remained to sweep and dust the schoolroom, and prepare kindling for the next morning's fire--a work they had taken upon themselves, so as to enable the teacher to put on the blackboards such outlines for the morrow's class work as might be required. Jim was writing on the board a list of words constituting a spelling exercise. They were not from the text-book, but grew naturally out of the study of the seed wheat--"cockle," "morning-glory," "convolvulus," "viable," "viability," "sprouting," "iron-weed" and the like. A tap was heard at the door, and Raymond Simms opened it.
In filed three women--and Jim Irwin knew as he looked at them that he was greeting a deputation, and felt that it meant a struggle. For they were the wives of the members of the school board. He placed for them the three available chairs, and in the absence of any for himself remained standing before them, a gaunt shabby-looking revolutionist at the bar of settled usage and fixed public opinion.
Mrs. Haakon Peterson was a tall blonde woman who, when she spoke betrayed her Scandinavian origin by the northern burr to her "r's," and a slight difficulty with her "j's," her "y's" and long "a's." She was slow-spoken and dignified, and Jim felt an instinctive respect for her personality. Mrs. Bronson was a good motherly woman, noted for her housekeeping, and for her church activities. She looked oftener at her son, and his friend Raymond than at the schoolmaster. Mrs. Bonner was the most voluble of the three, and was the only one who shook hands with Jim; but in spite of her rather offhand manner, Jim sensed in the little, black-eyed Irishwoman the real commander of the expedition against him--for such he knew it to be.