she asked, in genuine surprise. She knew
his speech was ungrammatical, but thought that due to careless training
rather than to no training at all.

"Where'd I go to school?" he demanded bitterly. "There ain't a school
within forty miles. Guess I wouldn't have went if I could," he added
as an afterthought, wishing to be quite honest in the matter. "School
didn't seem to cut no figure--until jus' lately."

"But you have learned--some?" she continued.

"Some. When I was a little kid my father used to work with me at
times. He learned me to read a little, an' to write my name, an' a
little more. But things didn't go right between him an' mother, an' he
got to drinkin' more an' more, an' just makin' hell of it. We used to
have a mighty fine herd of steers here, but it's all shot to pieces.
We don't put up hardly no hay, an' in a bad winter they die like
rabbits. When we sell a bunch the old man'll stay in town for a month
or more, blowin' the coin and leavin' the debts go. But I've been
fixin' him this year or two. I sneak a couple of steers away now an'
then, an' with the money I keep our grocery bills paid up, an' have a
little to rattle in my jeans. My credit's good at any store in town,"
and Irene thrilled to the note of pride in his voice as he said this.
The boy had real quality in him. "But I'm sick of it all," he
continued. "Sick of it, an' I wanna get out."

"You think you are not educated," she answered, trying to meet his
outburst as tactfully as possible. "Perhaps you are not, the way we
think of it in the city. But I guess there's a good many things you
can't learn out of books, and I guess you could show the city boys a
good many things they don't know, and never will know."

For the first time he looked her straight in the face. His dark eyes
met her grey ones, and demanded truth. "Irene," he said, "do you mean
that?"

"Sure I do," she answered. "College courses, and all that kind of
thing; they're good stuff, all right, but they make some awful nice
boys--real live boys, you know--into some awful dead ones. Either they
get the highbrow, and become bores, or the swelled head, and become
cads. Not all, you know, but lots of them. And then when they get out
they have to start learning the real things of life--things that you
have been learning here for ever so long. My father says about the
best education is to learn to live within your income, pay your debts,
and give the other fe