delegates to his daughter, though he rather shied at the proposal at first, but on thinking it over, warmed somewhat to the notion of having a Woodruff on the county pay-roll once more.

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CHAPTER VI

JIM TALKS THE WEATHER COLD

“Going to the rally, James?”

Jim had finished his supper, and yearned for a long evening in his attic den with his cheap literature. But as the district schoolmaster he was to some extent responsible for the protection of the school property, and felt some sense of duty as to exhibiting an interest in public affairs.

“I guess I’ll have to go, mother,” he replied regretfully. “I want to see Mr. Woodruff about borrowing his Babcock milk tester, and I’ll go that way. I guess I’ll go on to the meeting.”

He kissed his mother when he went—a habit from which he never deviated, and another of those personal peculiarities which had marked him as different from the other boys of the neighborhood. His mother urged his overcoat upon him in vain—for Jim’s overcoat was distinctly 66 a bad one, while his best suit, now worn every day as a concession to his scholastic position, still looked passably well after several weeks of schoolroom duty. She pressed him to wear a muffler about his neck, but he declined that also. He didn’t need it, he said; but he was thinking of the incongruity of a muffler with no overcoat. It seemed more logical to assume that the weather was milder than it really was, on that sharp October evening, and appear at his best, albeit rather aware of the cold. Jennie was at home, and he was likely to see and be seen of her.

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“You can borrow that tester,” said the colonel, “and the cows that go with it, if you can use ’em. They ain’t earning their keep here. But how does the milk tester fit into the curriculum of the school? A decoration?”

“We want to make a few tests of the cows in the neighborhood,” answered Jim. “Just another of my fool notions.”

“All right,” said the colonel. “Take it along. Going to the speakin’?”

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