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.

Down near the bottom of the pile she found this letter, signed by a
southern state superintendent of schools, but dated at Kirksville,
Missouri:

"I am a member of a party of southern educators--state
superintendents in the main," the letter ran, "_en tour_ of the
country to see what we can find of an instructive nature in rural
school work. I assure you that we are being richly repaid for the
time and expense. There are things going on in the schools here in
northeastern Missouri, for instance, which merit much study. We have
met Professor Withers, of Ames, who suggests that we visit your
schools, and especially the rural school taught by a young man named
Irwin, and I wonder if you will be free on next Monday morning, if we
come to your office, to direct us to the place? If you could
accompany us on the trip, and perhaps show us some of your other
excellent schools, we should be honored and pleased. The South is
recreating her rural schools, and we are coming to believe that we
shall be better workmen if we create a new kind rather than an
improvement of the old kind."

There was more of this courteous and deferential letter, all giving Jennie
a sense of being saluted by a fine gentleman in satin and ruffles, and
with a plume on his hat. And then came the shock--a party of state
officials were coming into the county to study Jim Irwin's school! They
would never come to study Wilbur Smythe's law practise--never in the
world--or her work as county superintendent--never!--and Jim was getting
seventy-five dollars a month, and had a mother to support. Moreover, he
was getting more than he had asked when the colonel had told him to "hold
the district up!" But there could be no doubt that there was something
_to_ Jim--the man was out of the ordinary. And wasn't