d be and may well be. At this moment, I feel like
surrendering--for your sake more than mine; but I'll have to think about
it. Suppose I refuse to resign?"

Jennie had drawn on her gloves, and stood ready for departure.

"Unless you resign before the twenty-fifth," said she, "I shall hear the
petition for your removal on that date. You will be allowed to be present
and answer the charges against you. The charges are incompetency. I bid
you good evening!"

"Incompetency!" The disgraceful word, representing everything he had
always despised, rang through Jim's mind as he walked home. He could think
of nothing else as he sat at the simple supper which he could scarcely
taste. Incompetent! Well, had he not always been incompetent, except in
the use of his muscles? Had he not always been a dreamer? Were not all his
dreams as foreign to life and common sense as the Milky Way from the
earth? What reason was there for thinking that this crusade of his for
better schools had any sounder foundation than hia dream of being
president, or a great painter, or a poet or novelist or philosopher? He
was just a hayseed, a rube, a misfit, as odd as Dick's hatband, an off ox.
He _was_ incompetent. He picked up a pen, and began writing. He wrote, "To
the Honorable the Board of Education of the Independent District of ----"
And he heard a tap at the door. His mother admitted Colonel Woodruff.

"Hello, Jim," said he.

"Good evening, Colonel," said Jim. "Take a chair, won't you?"

"No," replied the colonel. "I thought I'd see if you and the boys at the
schoolhouse can't tell me something about the smut in my wheat. I heard
you were going to work on that to-night."

"I had forgotten!" said Jim.

"I wondered if you hadn't," said the colonel, "and so I came by for you. I
was waiting up the road. Come on, and ride up with me."

The colonel had always been friendly, but there was a new note in his
manner to-night. He was almost deferential. If he had been talking to
Senator Cummins or the president of the state university, his tone could
not have been more courteous, more careful to preserve the amenities due
from man to man. He worked with the class on the problem of smut. He
offered to aid the boys in every possible way in their campaign against
scab in potatoes. He suggested some tests which would show the real value
of the treatment. The boys were in a glow of pride at this cooperation
with Colonel Woodruff. This was real work! Jim and