e mustn't expect Mr. Carmichael to know the
subject as well as we do, children. He makes a practise of talking mostly
to people who know nothing about it--and he talks very well. All in favor
of thanking Mr. Carmichael please say 'Aye.'"

There was a rousing chorus of "Aye!" in which Mr. Carmichael, followed
closely by Mr. Bonner, made his exit. B. B. Hamm went forward and shook
Jim's hand slowly and contemplatively, as if trying to remember just what
he should say.

"James E. Irwin," said he, "you've saved us from being skinned by the
smoothest grafter that I ever seen."

"Not I," said Jim; "the kind of school I stand for, Mr. Hamm, will save
you more than that--and give you the broadest culture any school ever
gave. A culture based on life. We've been studying life, in this
school--the life we all live here in this district."

"He had a smooth partner, too," said Columbus Brown. Jim looked at
Bonner's little boy in one of the front seats and shook his head at
Columbus warningly.

"If I hadn't herded 'em in here to ask you a few questions about
cooperative creameries," said Mr. Talcott, "we'd have been stuck--they
pretty near had our names. And then the whole neighborhood would have been
sucked in for about fifty dollars a name."

"I'd have gone in for two hundred," said B. B. Hamm.

"May I call a little meeting here for a minute, Jim?" asked Ezra Bronson.
"Why, where's he gone?"

"They's some other visitors come in," said a little girl, pulling her
apron in embarrassment at the teacher's absence.

Jim had, after what seemed to Jennie an interminable while, seen the
county superintendent and her distinguished party, and was now engaged in
welcoming them and endeavoring to find them seats,--quite an impossible
thing at that particular moment, by the way.

"Don't mind us, Mr. Irwin," said Doctor Brathwayt. "This is the best thing
we've seen on our journeyings. Please go on with the proceedin's. That
gentleman seems to have in mind the perfectin' of some so't of
organization. I'm intensely interested."

"I'd like to call a little meetin' here," said Ezra to the teacher.
"Seein' we've busted up your program so far, may we take a little while
longer?"

"Certainly," said Jim. "The school will please come to order."

The pupils took their seats, straightened their books and papers, and were
at attention. Doctor Brathwayt nodded approvingly as if at the answer to
some question in his mind.

"Children," said M