LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 Class 
 
 ' 
 
Of Fifty-five Years Old 
 
 (From the Pedagogical Seminary, G. Stanley Hall,. 
 Editor.} 
 
 ' 'Mr. Bardeen is the story writer of American 
 education. He has already written three books of 
 stories of New York schools, and here prints six 
 short ones. To our mind this is by far his best book. 
 His style is utterly unpretentious and sometimes 
 homely, but there is a sense of reality about the in- 
 cidents he portrays, and his writings embody the re- 
 sults of so much keen observation of the character 
 and psychic processes of teachers and everything is 
 described as so real that the stories are most impress- 
 ive. At the crises when^Paul Pembroke's fortunes 
 are changed for the better, when he protests before 
 a large commencement audience against a fraudulent 
 diploma, the victory of Sears over the Alpha Upsi- 
 lon Society, and the triumph of Miss Trumbull, are 
 profoundly moving. In the story of the haunted 
 school-room we have almost a contribution to hys- 
 tero-neurosis, while in Miss Fothergill's Protest we 
 have a character of a pushing but unscrupulous 
 girl which we fear is too true to life." 
 
AND OTHER 
 
 STORIES ABOUT SCHOOLS 
 
 C. \V. BARDEEN 
 
 Editor of The School Bulletin 
 
 RACUSE, N. Y. 
 
 C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER 
 1904 
 
 Copyright, 1904, by C. W. Bardeen 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Roderick Hume, the Story of a New York 
 Teacher. With 26 full-page illustrations by 
 L. A. Shrimpton. Cloth, 16:295, $1.25. 
 
 Commissioner Hume, a Story of New 
 York Schools. Cloth, 16:210, $1.25. 
 
 Fifty-five Years Old, and other Stories 
 about Teachers. Cloth, 16:216, $1.00. 
 
 The Little Old Man, or the School for 
 Illiberal Mothers. With illustrations. Cloth, 
 16:31, 50 cts. 
 
 Authors Birthdays. Three series. Illus- 
 trations. Cloth, 16:320, 459, 367. Each 
 $1.00. 
 
 Dictionary of Educational Biography. 
 With 400 portraits. Cloth, 12:287, $2.00. 
 
 Teaching as a Business. Cloth, 16:154, 
 $1.00. 
 
 (4) 
 
These stories appeared in the successive 
 monthly issues of The School Bulletin from 
 July to December, 1904. Though each is 
 complete itself, the same characters reap- 
 pear occasionally, and some of them will be 
 remembered by readers of the stories in 
 " Fifty-five Years Old". 
 
 (5) 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 The Woman Trustee 9 
 
 Without Credentials 39 
 
 Jot, the Janitor 75 
 
 The Masterful Man 103 
 
 On a Pedestal 141 
 
 Miss Dusinberrie's Downfall.., ...211 
 
 (7) 
 
THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 
 
 I 
 
 " This is the place," said Mrs. Washburn, 
 pausing at the entrance to an apartment 
 house and nodding at a bay window on the 
 first floor. 
 
 " She has an unconceited little^ sign," 
 remarked Emily Wells, looking at the plain 
 gold letters on a narrow black board: 
 
 ELIZABETH LYNDON, M. D. 
 
 " I hope she is as unconceited "as her 
 sign," said Miss Ames, " but I doubt it. 
 These professional women are usually up- 
 pish." 
 
 (9) 
 
10 THE WOMAST TRUSTEE 
 
 " Perhaps you misjudge them," said Mrs. 
 Washburn gently; " when a woman has to 
 elbow her way into a calling hitherto mo- 
 nopolized by men she sometimes has to as- 
 sume a self-confidence she does not feel." 
 
 The modest little sign had not attracted 
 many patients in Winchendon. Dr. Lyndon 
 was prepared to look for slow and small 
 beginnings, but it did seem as if in six 
 months there ought to have been more 
 emergencies, more calls upon her in the 
 temporary absence of other physicians. So 
 when in the latter part of July the bell 
 rang and these ladies presented themselves, 
 she hoped the call was professional. She 
 was disappointed. 
 
 " Dr. Lyndon," asked Mrs. Washburn, 
 " are you interested in woman suffrage ? " 
 
 She wasn't. She had found so many em- 
 barrassments and humiliations in preparing 
 
THE WOMAN TKUSTEE 11 
 
 herself for her profession that her feeling 
 was to preserve what little femininity she was 
 still credited with, and leave to men the 
 monopoly of such non-essentials as voting. 
 But Mrs. Washburn's kind, motherly face 
 attracted her, and she felt she should like 
 to know her. So she softened her natural 
 response into, " I have never thought much 
 about it." 
 
 " We women here," said Mrs. Washburn, 
 after introducing herself and her compan- 
 ions, " feel especially interested in school 
 suffrage. The law gives women in villages 
 like this the right to vote for school officers 
 and to hold office. We have never had a 
 woman representative on the board of edu- 
 cation, and we are starting a movement to 
 elect a woman trustee at the school meeting 
 next month." 
 
12 THE WOMAK TRUSTEE 
 
 " What are your plans ? " asked Dr. 
 Lyndon. 
 
 " We want to arouse public sentiment. 
 We have prepared a petition that we hope 
 to get five hundred women and some men 
 to sign, calling upon the voters to elect a 
 woman. Then we mean to have one or two 
 mass meetings, with distinguished suffrage 
 speakers from abroad." 
 
 Dr. Lyndon reflected a moment. " Are 
 you sure that is the best way ? " she asked. 
 " My father used to be on the school board 
 at home and I saw something of school mat- 
 ters. Very few voted at the school elec- 
 tions there. Do you know how many votes 
 were cast here last time ? " 
 
 " No, I don't; probably not many; peo- 
 ple take little interest in school elections. 
 The board renominates the men whose time 
 
THE WOMAK TRUSTEE 13 
 
 has expired, and the few who go to the polls 
 vote for these men the next day." 
 
 " Then why would it not be better instead 
 of starting this open movement and fore- 
 warning the men, to make a quiet canvass 
 just before the meeting, and have the wo- 
 men turn out unexpectedly in numbers 
 sufficient to cast a majority of the votes ? " 
 
 " A capital idea," exclaimed Mrs. Wash- 
 burn, with a twinkle in her eye; '" I do so 
 like to get a joke on the men." 
 
 The four women at once became allies 
 and the details of the campaign were ar- 
 ranged. On the first Wednesday of August 
 two hundred women were invited to a 
 sewing circle at Mrs. Washburn's, not far 
 from the place of election. An hour before 
 the polls closed these women filed out, and 
 not only cast their own votes, but by occu- 
 pying the line prevented any one else from 
 
14 THE WOMAX TKUSTEE 
 
 voting. Word was hastily sent to some 
 members of the board, but the president 
 was out of town, and nobody seemed to 
 know how to cope with the emergency. So 
 the women's candidate was elected two to 
 one. 
 
 Much to Dr. Lyndon's surprise and some- 
 what to her discomfiture, when the printed 
 ballots had been brought to Mrs. Wash- 
 burn's sewing circle they bore her name, 
 the ladies having been much, impressed not 
 only by her general good sense but by her 
 knowledge of school law. It was too late 
 to protest and she found herself a member 
 of the board of education. 
 II 
 
 In planning her work as a member of the 
 board, Dr. Lyndon's first thought was to 
 avoid the mistakes that a woman would 
 be expected to make. For instance, she 
 
THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 15 
 
 had not had much experience in business 
 on a large scale; in such matters she could 
 be for a long time only a learner. In fact 
 she meant to keep way in the background 
 the first year in all matters, learning all she 
 could, but realizing that she was not quali- 
 fied to advise with these men of long ex- 
 perience. 
 
 At the first meeting she was treated with 
 profuse courtesy. This she hoped to over- 
 come. She had never had time or inclina- 
 tion for sentiment, but she had known and 
 liked some fine men, and been admitted to 
 their companionship on the level; the com- 
 pliment she most cherished was from a man 
 classmate of hers at the medical school, who 
 had said, " Miss Lyndon, you are a mighty 
 good fellow." She meant these men should 
 find her a fellow-member, not a lady visi- 
 tor; but of course that would take time. 
 
16 THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 
 
 Judge Fellows was re-elected president, 
 and immediately appointed the committees. 
 He placed Dr. Lyndon on the teachers and 
 course of study committees, and made her 
 chairman of the committee on care of build- 
 ings . 
 
 " What are the duties of that commit- 
 tee ? " she asked. 
 
 " To see that the janitor keeps house 
 properly," replied the judge. " You are 
 doubly fitted : as a woman to look after the 
 house-keeping, and as a physician to see 
 that the conditions are sanitary." 
 
 Dr. Lyndon bowed, and resolved to do 
 that work well. So when book agents 
 swarmed around her she listened to them 
 and took their books and promised to exam- 
 ine them and did examine them, but in com- 
 mittee deferred to the judgment of the two 
 experienced members. When teachers came 
 
THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 17 
 
 to her for places, she heard their stories, 
 astonished they should offer so many other 
 reasons for appointment besi % des fitness, but 
 never questioned the judgment of Mr. Bur- 
 bank and Judge Fellows, the other members, 
 of the committee. 
 
 But the schoolhouse she resolved to know 
 better than anyone else knew it. She bought 
 all attainable books on school architecture 
 and sanitation and hygiene. She became a 
 frequent visitor, and after a little a welcome 
 visitor. At first the teachers, especially the 
 women teachers, were suspicious of her, 
 thinking she would interefere and make 
 herself disagreeable. But she soon got their 
 confidence. She asked questions of them 
 deferently, really wanted the benefit of 
 their experience, and where changes were 
 necessary made them as far as possible 
 through them. 
 
18 THE WOMA^ TRUSTEE 
 
 One of the first things that troubled 
 her was the eyesight of pupils. The black- 
 boards were old and shiny, and at different 
 times of the day reflected only a glare to 
 different parts of the room. This she 
 brought to the attention of the teachers, 
 and got the teachers themselves to petition 
 for fresh slating. In so doing she made the 
 teachers observant, and led them to lessen 
 the amount of blackboard work to be read 
 from the seats, and to look for need of 
 glasses among the children. 
 Ill 
 
 The problem of ventilation proved the 
 most serious. The Winchendon schoolhouse 
 was heated by an enormous single furnace, 
 sending hot-air pipes all over the building. 
 There were one or more so-called ventilators 
 in each room, but they were at the top of the 
 rooms and if opened at all were sup- 
 
THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 19 
 
 posed only to carry off the comparatively 
 fresh hot air. 
 
 Dr. Lyndon bought a series of Woulfe's 
 bottles, and began to make and record ob- 
 servations. The results were appalling; 
 not seldom before the close of school in the 
 afternoon the instrument showed 3 to 4 per 
 cent of carbonic dioxide. 
 
 Dr. Lyndon did what she could with win- 
 dow ventilation without endangering the 
 pupils who sat near, but still the figures 
 were sickening. She began to study the 
 furnace itself. She found that the cold air 
 box through which the fresh air was sup- 
 posed to come in to be warmed and distri- 
 buted was closed, so that the air sent up 
 stairs was drawn out of the cellar. She 
 called the janitor to account. He was a 
 little weazened Irishman, who had held the 
 place from time immemorial, and who 
 
20 THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 
 
 looked condescendingly at this slip of a girl 
 who was interfering through ignorance. 
 
 " Why, Miss Lyndon," he said he had 
 frequently remarked that he wouldn't never 
 call no woman doctor " if you open that 
 air box it will take twice the coal. That 
 outside air eats up coal powerful fast." 
 
 " Never mind, Mr. Donovan," she said; 
 "the school board will furnish the coal; 
 don't let that box be closed again except 
 when the wind is from the east, and then 
 only partly." 
 
 The janitor was inclined to grumble, but 
 he noticed that every time she came to the 
 school she looked at the cold-air box first, 
 so he thought it prudent to leave it open. 
 
 But still the ventilation was abominable. 
 Sometimes an odor came up through the 
 registers that was much more than carbonic 
 dioxide the fetid carbonic oxide, to breathe 
 
THE WOMAtf TRUSTEE 21 
 
 which is not merely absence of oxygen but 
 active poison. She looked into the matter 
 and found that this occurred when large 
 quantities of fresh fuel were shovelled at 
 once upon the hot coals, forming a blue 
 flame that gave out quantities of this gas. 
 She thoroughly informed herself about this, 
 and then explained to the janitor why he 
 should never feed the furnace in this way 
 while the school was in session, but instead 
 put on the fresh coal in small quantities. 
 
 He listened with growing impatience. 
 He did not mind the coal air box so much; 
 that was a silly notion but it wasn't much 
 bother. But to put on only a shovel or two 
 full of coal at a time meant a good deal of 
 extra work, and he was by no means in- 
 clined to comply. He tried to argue the 
 matter; failing there he simply refused. 
 
 Dr. Lyndon was astonished. Her com- 
 
22 THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 
 
 mittee had practical charge of hiring and 
 discharging the janitor, and she was prac- 
 tically the committee. That he should ven- 
 ture upon rebellion was inconceivable. She 
 said as much to him. 
 
 He looked at her disdainfully. " Why 
 you crowing hen," he exclaimed, " I was 
 janitor of this building long before you 
 were born, and I shall be janitor of it long 
 after Winchendon has forgot the dirty trick 
 by which you got yourself elected on the 
 board for one short term." 
 
 The man was not even drunk; he was 
 simply giving vent to the pent-up wrath 
 that had been accumulating ever since Dr. 
 Lyndon began to inspect his work. 
 
 She understood that she had power 'to 
 discharge him; but not to be precipitate 
 she consulted the other two members of the 
 committee. She went first to the Eeverend 
 
THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 23 
 
 Mr. Kennedy, a ponderous, solemn man, 
 rector of a little Episcopal church on the 
 outskirts. He listened impassively, and 
 when she had finished her story said as if 
 delivering a pope's opinion ex cathedra, 
 66 You are unquestionably right. I shall 
 support you in the committee and on the 
 board." 
 
 The other member, Mr. Tucker, a fat 
 little grocer, was more demonstrative. She 
 found him tying up packages for the deliv- 
 ery wagon, and when she repeated the jani- 
 tor's language he was furious. " I wish I 
 had been there," he said, pounding down 
 on the counter so hard that his fist broke 
 open a package of loaf sugar; " I would 
 have kicked him out of the building." 
 
 Dr. Lyndon smiled within; Mr. Tucker's 
 figure did not really fit him to kick even so 
 small a man as the janitor; still she appre- 
 
24 THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 
 
 ciated his sympathy and his warm support. 
 
 As it happened there was a special board- 
 meeting that night, and she reported to the 
 full board. There was no dissenting voice, 
 the only regret expressed being on the part 
 of two other men who, like Mr. Tucker, 
 wished they had been there to hear him use 
 such language to her ; he would have learned 
 & lesson. She was assured that she had 
 full authority to discharge the man and hire 
 another in his place, and was blamed as too 
 lenient when she expressed her purpose of 
 giving Donovan a fortnight's notice. 
 IV 
 
 The regular meeting occurred the next 
 week, and when reports of committees were 
 -called for she stated that she had discharged 
 Donovan and hired in his place a man who 
 had been janitor of an apartment house in 
 Pepperell, who understood heating and ven- 
 
THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 25 
 
 tilating thoroughly, and who had excellent 
 references which she had verified for sobri- 
 ety, faithfulness, and good character. 
 
 The report was received and placed on 
 file, and the business of the meeting pro- 
 ceeded. Dr. Lyndon felt that she had man- 
 aged the matter well, in fact in a way credi- 
 table to her sex; she did not see how any 
 man on the board could have been more 
 moderate or careful or successful. 
 
 Her mind was rather upon this than upon 
 the routine work of the evening, and when 
 the president asked if there were any com- 
 munications she paid little attention to the 
 statement of the clerk that there was one 
 from the Trades Assembly. The president 
 asked that it be presented, and the clerk 
 read as follows: 
 
 " Whereas, Michael Donovan has been 
 janitor of the union school building for 
 
26 . THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 
 
 more than twenty-eight years, and is a re- 
 spectable citizen and member of the com- 
 munity, and likewise belongs to the Trades 
 Assembly; and, 
 
 " Whereas, a certain female elected by 
 trickery to the board of education has in- 
 terfered with said Michael Donovan's pre- 
 rogatives, and shown herself an ignorant 
 and mischief- making meddler; and, 
 
 " Whereas, when in performance of his 
 loyal duties to the school and to the com- 
 munity said Michael Donovan refused to 
 make changes in his care of the furnace 
 which would have prevented the proper 
 heating of the building and entailed great 
 cost of additional coal upon the tax-paying 
 community, said female member of the 
 board did thereupon assume to discharge 
 said Michael Donovan from the position he 
 has so long and so' honorably held, and at 
 
THE WOMAK TRUSTEE 27 
 
 such great benefit to the community, which 
 does not care to be experimented upon by 
 persons who have unsexed themselves and 
 entered upon professions and civil offices 
 that belong to the stronger sex; therefore, 
 
 " Resolved, that the Trades Assembly 
 and all the allied unions of the village of 
 Winchendon do hereby protest against this 
 assumption of arbitrary authority on the 
 part of this female member of the board; 
 and, 
 
 " Resolved, that we call upon the other 
 members of the board to vindicate the 
 rights of labor and restore said Michael 
 Donovan without delay." 
 
 Dr. Lyndon was very much amused as 
 the reading proceeded, and looked for a 
 burst of merriment when it was concluded. 
 
 But the other members seemed grave. 
 After some silence, during which Dr. Lyn- 
 
28 THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 
 
 don looked in perplexity from one face to 
 another, Judge Fellows asked : 
 
 " What do you say to these resolutions, 
 Dr. Lyndon ? " 
 
 " Why, they seem more like opera bouffe 
 than sober earnest. It hardly seems possi- 
 ble that intelligent men could have written 
 them or passed them." 
 
 " But they are signed by every union in 
 Winchendon," said Mr. Burbank. 
 
 " It is a pity the unions are not more in- 
 telligently officered," she replied. 
 
 " It seems this Donovan is a high-up offi- 
 cer in the Trades Assembly," continued Mr. 
 Burbank. 
 
 " I hope he does his work there better 
 than in the schoolhouse," she said. 
 
 " You don't realize the situation, Dr. 
 Lyndon," said Judge Fellows. " Our char- 
 ter election comes next month. We nave 
 
THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 29 
 
 so large a foreign population that the yote is 
 nearly equal between the two parties. This 
 board of education is republican. Unless 
 we accede to this request the democrats will 
 carry the March election, and it may be 
 years before we get control again." 
 
 " I don't understand," replied Dr. Lyn- 
 don. " How can we be a republican board 
 of education ? A majority may vote the 
 republican ticket on national issues, but 
 there are no national issues here. All we 
 are concerned for is to provide the best 
 school we can for the money given us to 
 spend." 
 
 " You can't dissociate elections like 
 that," said Judge Fellows, indulgently. 
 " Elections are carried by organization, and 
 though the issues are different in national 
 and state and local elections,the organization 
 has to be depended upon to secure the desired 
 
30 THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 
 
 results. Now it would never do for the or- 
 ganization to fly in the face of the Trades 
 Assembly; that controls too many votes." 
 
 " But you don't mean to'say you propose 
 to rescind your action in this janitor mat- 
 ter ?" she asked. 
 
 " Why, as a matter of fact, Dr. Lyndon, 
 the board has not taken action on that mat- 
 ter," said Mr. Tucker. 
 
 " At the meeting last week you every 
 one agreed that our committee was to dis- 
 charge him," she said. 
 
 " But that was only the expression of 
 individual opinion; there was no formal ac- 
 tion by the board as a whole," said Mr. 
 Burbank. 
 
 " In other words, you gentlemen simply 
 made promises to a woman, and you do not 
 consider yourselves bound," she exclaimed 
 indignantly. 
 
THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 31 
 
 " You ought to be reasonable, Dr. Lyn- 
 don," said the judge wincing. " We have 
 tried to be courteous to you, and to treat 
 you not only as a lady but as a valued fel- 
 low member. But we all of us have to 
 change our views and our plans as exigen- 
 cies arise. We did not know that this man 
 Donovan was high up in labor circles, or 
 suspect that he would go stirring up these 
 unions till he had all organized labor en- 
 listed in his behalf. These facts make new 
 conditions, and we have to consider the ques- 
 tion from a different point of view." 
 
 " The voice of the people is the voice of 
 Gawd," said Mr. Kennedy, in solemn tones. 
 
 " I think I understand, " said Dr. Lyn- 
 don scornfully. " I suppose when you 
 gentlemen were boys if you were walking 
 with a girl and a little boy insulted her you 
 would fight him, but if a big brother of his 
 
32 THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 
 
 appeared you would apologize and run 
 away." 
 
 " It seems hardly worth while to continue 
 the discussion," said the judge; " we see 
 as you do not the requirements of practical 
 politics, and we must protect the higher 
 interests of our organization. No doubt 
 this man ought to be dismissed, but the 
 school has got on with him twenty-eight 
 years without going to destruction, and his 
 discharge at just this juncture would do 
 more harm in putting control of the village 
 into the hands of unscrupulous men than it 
 would do good to the school." 
 
 Dr. Lyndon flushed and started to speak 
 impulsively, but with effort restrained her- 
 self. Then she said calmly but with dry 
 throat, " May I ask for formal action on my 
 report?" 
 
 A vote was taken and the eight men voted 
 
THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 33 
 
 not to adopt the report. Then Dr. Lyndon 
 rose and spoke, again with difficulty to keep 
 her throat moist. " Gentlemen, I came upon 
 this board much to my surprise and with 
 many misgivings. I found the work unex- 
 pectedly pleasant. You treated me courte- 
 ously, you assigned me a kind of work I had 
 fitted myself for, and I felt that I was mak- 
 ing myself useful. It seemed to me that I 
 had formed a pleasant acquaintance with 
 you gentlemen, and I felt it a privilege to 
 be associated with you and to see your 
 methods of disposing of business. But this 
 evening's action shows me that it will be 
 quite impossible for me to work with you 
 further, and I hereby resign my member- 
 ship; and as I see how little acquaintance 
 I really had with you, I shall ask that it be 
 understood we have no acquaintance at all. 
 Good evening, gentlemen." 
 
34 THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 
 
 She was as good as her word. Thereafter 
 when she passed any member of the board 
 upon the street she looked him as full in 
 the eye as she would any stranger, and be- 
 trayed no recognition of any attempt on 
 his part to bow. At an evening function 
 where the hostess lacked tact to see that 
 she and Judge Fellows were avoiding an en- 
 counter and insisted on thrusting them 
 against each other, remarking, " Surely, 
 Judge Fellows, you must be acquainted with 
 Dr. Lyndon," the latter replied, " Judge 
 Fellows and I know each other, but we are 
 not acquainted," and turned away. 
 
 " Well, of all the impudence," the host- 
 ess started to say, but Judge Fellows inter- 
 rupted her. " Dr. Lyndon is quite justi- 
 fied," he said gravely; " our board of edu- 
 cation treated her shabbily." 
 
 She built up something of a practice in 
 
THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 35 
 
 Winchendon, being especially successful in 
 dealing with children's diseases. One night 
 as she was about to retire there was a wild 
 ring at her bell. She found Mr. Tucker 
 there. " Agnes diphtheria dying," he 
 panted, agonizingly. 
 
 Before the last word was uttered she had 
 seized her case of instruments, and she made 
 her way to the house so rapidly that the 
 anxious father could hardly keep up with 
 her. She found the child gasping, she saw 
 that heroic treatment was necessary, and 
 she administered it unflinchingly. It was 
 a narrow shave, but breathing was restored, 
 and she said to the mother " There is 
 hope." She sat by the bedside till seven 
 in the morning, and then she said, " Your 
 child is out of danger; with ordinary care 
 she will recover." 
 
 She still ignored the father, she never 
 
36 THE WOMAN TRUSTEE 
 
 again entered the house; when he sent her 
 a check for a hundred dollars she simply 
 burned it, not even returning it. But the 
 mother and she became close friends, and 
 little Agnes is to-day her most frequent and 
 most privileged caller. 
 
 Dr. Lyndon is well thought of in Winch- 
 endon. Few remember that she was once 
 on the board of education, and when it is 
 mentioned her friends say, " well, what 
 could you expect ? That is no sort of work 
 for a woman." Michael Donovan is still 
 janitor. He has closed up the cold-air box, 
 and he shovels on coal as he pleases. Judge 
 Fellows has admitted more than once that 
 nothing else has occurred in the board 
 which gives him as much chagrin in the 
 remembrance as its treatment of Dr. Lyn- 
 don. But the republicans still carry the 
 village elections. 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 I 
 
 " Hello. Yes. Absolutely out of the 
 question; why the term has only just be- 
 gun. Well, what of it? Suppose we 
 should go to him and say we have found a 
 man who can teach fifty per cent better 
 than he for the same money, and ask him 
 to let us off from our contract. No, I tell 
 you, Burbank, it isn't right; when people 
 make contracts they should live up to them. 
 Besides, this would leave the school in the 
 lurch. 
 
 " Do you know anything about him ? 
 Why the idea of putting in a man we know 
 
 nothing about. You're wild, Burbank. 
 
 (39) 
 
40 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 It's all well enough to want to favor this 
 young fellow, but we must consider the 
 school first. I'll see him, of course, but 
 it's no use; things are going all right at 
 the school now, and and I'm not going to 
 swap horses crossing a stream, especially 
 when I don't know the other horse." 
 
 Judge Fellows threw back the receiver of 
 the telephone with an emphasis that showed 
 his annoyance. Shortly after there was a 
 knock at his office door, and he called, 
 "Come in." 
 
 " Mr. Burbank sent me over to see you 
 about the possible vacancy in your school," 
 the visitor said. 
 
 The judge was astonished. Winchendon 
 did not pay high salaries, and for principal 
 it usually chose between young fellows of 
 some ability and little experience, and men 
 of some experience and little ability, in 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 41 
 
 either case crude and with pedagogue writ- 
 ten all over them. But this man, Mr. Bruce 
 as he introduced himself, was a man of the 
 world, well dressed, well groomed, well 
 mannered, such a man as the judge would 
 expect to meet at an exclusive club in Bos- 
 ton or New York. His surprise was so 
 manifest that Mr. Bruce went on easily: 
 
 " You are naturally astonished at my look- 
 ing for a twelve-hundred dollar place. You 
 are quite right; I am not a twelve-hundred 
 dollar man. The last salary I received as 
 a teacher was twenty-three hundred, as 
 principal of the high school in Elizabeth, 
 Montana. Because I taught school pretty 
 well, some people thought I was well adapted 
 for a business man. I thought so, too. The 
 mistake has cost me five years and all my 
 savings. Now I am going back to what I 
 
42 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 know I can do, and of course I must begin 
 with what offers." 
 
 It was said frankly and modestly, and 
 made a favorable impression on the judge. 
 " What was the business you went into ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 Mr. Bruce smiled ruefully. u It will be 
 an old story to you," he said; " the courts 
 are full of such cases; but even we who 
 read the newspapers get taken in, now and 
 then. 
 
 " We Montana people usually put our 
 savings into mines. I ran across a new 
 mine, one vacation, that seemed to me 
 promising, and I began to invest in that. 
 It paid well and I put in more; I got some 
 of my friends to put in money; I became 
 rather useful to them, in a small way. 
 ; J 4 One June, just before school was out, 
 one of the original owners visited me. He 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 43 
 
 said he and his partner were plain miners, 
 with no education, no acquaintance with 
 people, no gift of gab. They wanted to raise 
 some'money so as to have their own stamp- 
 ing mills and save the heavy freight to Butte. 
 If I would come up to the mine and make 
 myself thoroughly sure the proposition was 
 a good one, they would pay me double my 
 present salary to go east and raise capital. 
 
 " It looked all right; it was all right; the 
 men were straight and their mine was a 
 good one. I went east for them and I raised 
 a lot of money, the stamping mills were put 
 up, and the mine did well. My expenses 
 were paid, I was not using much of my own 
 money, and I kept investing everything in 
 the mine. 
 
 " It got to be too good a thing. One of 
 the men whom I interested in the mine 
 went out to examine it and bought out the 
 
44 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 interest of the original owners, thus getting 
 a majority of the stock. Then he formed 
 a new company with inflated capital, paid 
 enormous salaries to a few officers, and neg- 
 lected the mine so as to freeze out the other 
 stockholders. Dividends stopped, and as- 
 sessments took their place. I protested, 
 but in vain, and finally last Monday I told 
 the new president what I thought of him 
 and his proceedings. 
 
 " He laughed in my face, proved to me 
 that everything he had done was within the 
 law, and swore that if I took the matter 
 into the newspapers he would sue me for 
 libel, and ruin me financially, whether he 
 won the case or not. For that matter I 
 was ruined financially anyway, for I have 
 been unable to pay the assessments on my 
 stock and have lost it. Of course I threw 
 up my place, and I resolved to get back 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 45 
 
 among honest men and into honest business 
 without delay. I saw in the Tribune that 
 your principal had been offered the place in 
 the boys high school, and I came on at once, 
 thinking there might be a chance to earn at 
 least my bread and butter." 
 
 " Are you married?" asked the judge. 
 
 " There you strike a tender spot," said 
 Mr. Bruce, sadly. " My wife and my little 
 boy that never made a sound are buried in 
 one grave." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said the judge 
 hastily; " of course I did not know." 
 
 He liked this man. The mining experi- 
 ence was a common one; he knew as few 
 lawyers did how helpless the small stock- 
 holder is in the hands of the " kings of 
 finance ". That he was ready to start again 
 so humbly and so cheerfully was much in 
 his favor. 
 
46 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 Just then Mr. Burbank came in. "I say, 
 judge," he began, " I don't see how we can 
 stand in young Farnsworth's way. The one 
 thing he has fitted himself for is to teach 
 mathematics in a secondary school, and 
 now comes this opening in the boys high 
 school, Brooklyn, at two thousand dollars. 
 It probably won't come to him again in a 
 life-time. And honestly I believe we shall 
 gain by the change if we take Mr. Bruce." 
 
 The judge was willing to be convinced. 
 " Have you credentials ? " he asked Mr. 
 Bruce. 
 
 " If you mean testimonials," was the 
 reply, " I never had one in my life. You 
 see the principal of the normal school sent 
 me the day I graduated to Red Bow, Mon- 
 tana; I staid there two years, and the board 
 at Long Sweep elected me without my mak- 
 ing an application. Then the Elizabeth su- 
 
WITEiOUT CREDENTIALS 47 
 
 perintendeut visited my school and offered 
 me the principalship of a ward school there, 
 from which I was promoted to the high 
 school. I have never before had to ask for 
 a place, so of course I have never needed 
 testimonials, and I have none. Bat I can 
 give you plenty of references. I might refer 
 you to the president of the mining com- 
 pany," he said, with an amused twinkle in 
 his eye. " Honestly, I should rather like to 
 have you write to him ; I should like to see 
 how he would express himself. If he had 
 written it right after our interview the paper 
 would have caught fire from the ink. 
 
 " I'll tell you, gentlemen," he continued 
 more seriously, " suppose you write to the 
 present superintendent at Elizabeth, John 
 H. Squires. He was not there when I was, 
 but he knows of my work. And Henry 
 Ames, a banker there, is probably still on 
 
48 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 the board. He knows me very well. Or 
 better still you don't want to wait a week 
 to get replies telegraph them at my ex- 
 pense; " and Mr. Bruce took out a twenty- 
 dollar bill and laid it on the judge's desk. 
 
 The judge and Mr. Burbank looked at 
 each other and nodded. " We won't put 
 you to that outlay," the judge said, hand- 
 ing him back the bill. " Mr. Burbank will 
 Write to these men, and in the mean time 
 we will take you on trust. You can begin 
 to-morrow morning." 
 
 The judge wrote out the names and 
 handed the paper to Mr. Burbank, who put 
 it in his waistcoat pocket. 
 
 " I thank you, gentlemen," said Mr. 
 Bruce simply; " I will try not to disap- 
 point you." 
 
 II 
 
 Mr. Bruce did not disappoint them. 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 49 
 
 Never did man get complete control of 
 a school in shorter time. He had spent the 
 remainder of the day in the building, pick- 
 ing up all the points he could from the 
 present principal, and becoming acquainted 
 with the other teachers and some of the 
 pupils, so that he began work with much 
 already accomplished. His presence con- 
 vinced the boys from the start that he was 
 probably master of the situation, but some 
 of the boldest thought it would be unworthy 
 of them to yield without experiment. 
 
 While he was hearing a class in arithme- 
 tic at the blackboard, the first hour, a spit- 
 ball flew past his head and spread itself out 
 on the glass over a portrait of Lincoln. 
 Apparently he did not notice it, and the 
 boy was just about to blow another when, 
 the class having been dismissed, Mr. Bruce 
 said, as if he were asking what time it was, 
 
50 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 " Jones, will you bring that blow-gun 
 here?" 
 
 Jones came forward in a shame-faced way, 
 astonished that Mr. Bruce should have 
 known not only that he blew the spit-ball 
 but what his name was. Mr. Bruce took 
 the blow-pipe and examined it curiously. 
 " That's a very well-made one," he said, 
 critically; " where do you get them? at the 
 tin-shop?" 
 
 " Yes, sir," replied the boy. 
 
 " What do you have to pay for them ? " 
 
 " Five cents." 
 
 " The man must make a good many of 
 them to sell as good a one as that for five 
 cents. How many do you suppose there 
 are in the school ? " 
 
 " I don't know, sir; a good many." 
 
 " They are much better than we used to 
 have when I was a boy. Then we had to 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 51 
 
 make them out of willow bark, the same as 
 we used for whistles. I suppose boys have 
 always used blow-guns in school. I have 
 no doubt that some of those picture scenes 
 at Herculaneum and on the walls of the 
 kings tombs in Egypt show schoolboys 
 blowing spit-balls or something similar when 
 the teacher is not looking. But of course 
 that sort of thing is done only to experi- 
 ment on inexperienced teachers. You won't 
 need to try it again on me because I am not 
 an inexperienced teacher. The spit-ball 
 does not ornament the portrait of Lincoln, 
 does it ? You will see that it is washed off 
 . at recess and the glass carefully polished, 
 won't you ? Thank you. Here is your 
 blow-gun. Don't bring it to school again, 
 please, and suggest to the other boys that 
 they leave theirs at home." 
 
 This is substantially what Mr. Bruce 
 
52 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 said, but in type it gives no appreciation of 
 the way he said it, in perfectly friendly 
 tone and with only the suggestion of disap- 
 proval, and yet with such a manifest knowl- 
 edge of boys and boys' ways that the con- 
 viction at once spread over the school it 
 would be of no use to try to deceive him. 
 
 In recitation too he seized an early op- 
 portunity to establish the right relations. 
 In a large geography class a girl who was 
 called up among the last floundered so hope- 
 lessly that it was manifest she had made no 
 preparation. He kept her upon her feet 
 till she became embarrassed and then asked y 
 " You came in without looking at the lesson 
 to-day, didn't you, Miss Snow ? " 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Bruce," she said, blushing. 
 
 " And if you had not been called upon 
 you would have kept it secret that you were 
 not prepared ? " 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 53 
 
 " Why, of course." 
 
 " Now really neither you nor I can afford 
 that. If the recitation is to be given up 
 to detecting who have not learned their 
 lessons there will be no time for anything 
 else, and it seems to me we can use the 
 hour much more profitably. Let us have 
 an agreement now that whenever any one of 
 you for any reason is not prepared, you will 
 come to me before recitation and say so. 
 The reason may be good and may not be, 
 but at least we shall be frank and open 
 with one another, and then we can give all 
 our energy to making the recitation as pro- 
 fitable as possible." 
 
 Mr. Bruce was as good as his word; the 
 recitations were very profitable; it might 
 fairly be said that the pupils usually heard 
 the bell for changing classes with regret. 
 It was not that he poured out information 
 
54 WITHOUT CEEDEKTIALS 
 
 upon them, though he abounded in illus- 
 trations and experiences that were always 
 interesting; but the especial charm was the 
 way he correlated the lesson with their own 
 experiences, till in what had seemed to them 
 abstract and dry he would sometimes have 
 half the class shaking their arms in air, 
 eager to tell what they had done or thought. 
 Mr. Bruce was never hurried; if a line 
 of thought was proving profitable he gave 
 the whole recitation hour to it, without 
 regard to the rest of the lesson; and al- 
 most always the pupils went home from 
 school thinking. The village library soon 
 felt the influence. Instead of drawing 
 now and then a story-book, the scholars 
 spent hours over reference books, and were 
 continually calling for works on science and 
 biography and history. The discussions 
 reached the dinner-table, and parents who 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 55 
 
 met Mr. Bruce on the street would com- 
 plain whimsically but with manifest pride 
 that their children left them no peace, but 
 wanted to know everything that was in the 
 heavens above or the earth beneath or the 
 waters under the earth. 
 
 But Mr. Bruce was more than an instruc- 
 tor; he was continually studying his boys 
 and girls ana giving them unobtrusively 
 little suggestions that were of inestimable 
 value. If a girl was inclined to stoop, as 
 so many growing girls are, he would find a 
 time when she happened to be sitting erect 
 and tell her how much difference it made in 
 her appearance; in fact, that the French, 
 who study appearance, ask, not how do you 
 do, but how do you carry yourself, as if 
 that were the whole matter. 
 
 To another, inclined to be hoydenish and 
 familiar with the boys, he told of two girls 
 
56 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 who met after a party in the dressing-room 
 and congratulated each other that they were 
 the only girls there who had not been han- 
 dled; and he pointed out how one could be 
 easy and unaffected and yet feel it was un- 
 dignified to be pulled and hauled about by 
 boys. 
 
 " I saw your mother's picture when I was 
 at your house the other night," he said; 
 " she must have been a lovely woman. I 
 can hardly imagine her when she was almost 
 grown up letting half the boys in school put 
 their hands on her familiarly and call her 
 Mayme. You are worthy of better things, 
 Mary." 
 
 It was not that he preached at his pupils, 
 or interfered unnecessarily, or nagged. He 
 never offered a criticism without manifest 
 reluctance and what the pupil felt to be 
 sufficient reason. He was helped to speak 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 57 
 
 successfully because he saw so much of the 
 pupils at their homes. He had quite the 
 way of calling about, and his landlady com- 
 plained that he hardly ever took tea with 
 her. He was an interesting guest because 
 he liked to talk with parents about their 
 children, he showed parents that he knew 
 their children, their weak points and their 
 strong; and that he was doing his best not 
 only for the school but for Henry and Fan- 
 ny individually. 
 
 Besides, he was a pleasant man in society. 
 In his manner toward his school girls, his 
 teachers, and all women there was a courtly 
 deference that gratified them and made it- 
 self felt in the community. He was always 
 ready to help and he never tried to lead. 
 He had a good baritone voice and added 
 much to every chorus, but he could not be 
 induced to sing a solo. " I know my limi- 
 
58 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 tations," he would protest modestly, and 
 nothing could swerve him; but he would 
 listen to solos unwearied, and when he 
 praised, he praised intelligently. 
 
 He was too ready to respond to subscrip- 
 tion lists; people were almost ashamed to 
 ask him. No sooner was a good cause men- 
 tioned than his name was down and the 
 money paid on the spot a feature that adds 
 wonderfully to the impressiveness of charity. 
 
 He was a constant attendant at the Bap- 
 tist church, where the young pastor, an 
 earnest and sincere man, got into the habit 
 of calling for Mr. Bruce and going off for 
 a long walk every Monday. It helped the 
 preacher to talk over yesterday's sermon 
 with the principal. He tried to persuade 
 Mr. Bruce to join the church, but to that 
 Mr. Bruce demurred. " I have lived so 
 long in rough communities," he said, " and 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 59 
 
 I have seen so much sanctimoniousness, 
 that I should have to feel very, very sure in 
 my own mind that I saw the light." But 
 there was no work in church or Sunday 
 school within the scope of an outsider that 
 he did not hasten to do when it was sug- 
 gested. 
 
 " A very useful man in the community," 
 was the universal verdict. 
 Ill 
 
 A special board meeting had been called 
 on the last Friday in May, and after the 
 immediate matters had been disposed of 
 there was some discussion as to teachers 
 for next year. 
 
 " Of course we can't expect to retain Mr. 
 Bruce at twelve hundred dollars," said 
 Judge Fellows, " and the question is how 
 much more we are justified in offeriDg him." 
 
 Several members had expressed themselves 
 
60 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 ready to propose a considerable advance; 
 pupils, teachers, parents all were delighted 
 with the present management, and would 
 not complain of a slightly higher school tax. 
 
 " Why look at the confidence this com- 
 munity feels in him," said Mr. Nutting, en- 
 thusiastically. " He came in to-day and 
 wanted to borrow two hundred dollars. I 
 not only gave it to him but I wouldn't even 
 take a receipt for it." 
 
 The others nodded approvingly but under 
 his heavy eyebrows Judge Fellows's eyes lit 
 up with a little surprise. However he only 
 said: " Well, gentlemen, we won't cross the 
 bridge till we get to it. In the absence of 
 Mr. Burbank, chairman of the .teachers 
 committee, we couldn't take action to-night 
 anyway, so if there is no further business 
 we may as well adjourn.' 1 
 
 He walked down the street with Mr. Nut- 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 61 
 
 ting, and after some careless chat asked, 
 " How did Mr. Bruce come to want two 
 hundred dollars ? " 
 
 " as usual for somebody else," replied 
 Mr. Nutting. " He is the most unselfish 
 man I ever knew. It seems his landlady, 
 Mrs. Hartwell, had a mortgage coming due 
 yesterday, and she did not get in some 
 money she had expected to pay it. Bruce 
 had three hundred dollars saved up, and 
 with the two hundred 1 let him have she 
 paid the mortgage. He is going to pay me 
 one hundred dollars out of this month's 
 pay to-morrow, and the other hundred a 
 month from to-morrow. His personal ex- 
 penses are very light, and he has enough on 
 hand for them, so Mrs. Hartwell can take 
 her time. Did you ever see a man so ready 
 to sacrifice himself for others ? " 
 
 " He is indeed on the lookout for every- 
 
62 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 one," said the judge, reflectively. " I must 
 turn here; good night." 
 
 Mrs. Hartwell was the widow of a friend 
 of Judge Fellows and the judge had always 
 taken care of her financial matters. He 
 knew there were no mortgages on her prop- 
 erty, and he was much concerned over what 
 might be the effect of some advice he had 
 recently given her. He went to the house, 
 apologized for calling so late, and said, " By 
 the way, Mrs. Hartwell, I have changed my 
 mind about your selling that Sea Shore 
 stock. You would make a clear five hun- 
 dred and the present price seems abnormal- 
 ly high, and yet I am inclined to think you 
 had better keep it." 
 
 " Why, I have already sold it," said Mrs. 
 Hartwell. 
 
 " Sold it ? " The judge's tone expressed 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 63 
 
 surprise; this was the first transaction she 
 had ever made except through him. 
 
 "Yes; I was talking with Mr. Bruce 
 about it and he said you were entirely right; 
 that a hundred and eighty for four per cent 
 stock was ridiculous. Besides, he happened 
 to know of a six per cent real estate first 
 mortgage on Boston property, and he has 
 gone there to get that for me, It is a two- 
 thousand dollar mortgage, but he is going 
 to lend me the difference and let me pay him 
 out of the interest." 
 
 " I see," said the judge. " Did you sell 
 the stock here ? " 
 
 " Yes, the First National bank took it 
 to-day." 
 
 " In what form did they pay you ? " 
 
 "A Boston draft; but afterward I changed 
 it to bills, because Mr. Bruce said the peo- 
 ple who owned the mortgage were old-fash- 
 
64 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 ioned and did not like to take checks and 
 drafts." 
 
 " Mr. Bruce has gone to Boston, I sup- 
 pose ? " 
 
 " Yes, he went on the four-o'clock train. " 
 
 " Very obliging man, Mr. Bruce. How 
 well your nasturtiums are looking, Mrs. 
 Hartwell ; I noticed them as I came by this 
 morning." 
 
 On his way to his office one of the teach- 
 ers met him. " I am so glad I saw you," 
 she said; " will you lend me twenty dol- 
 lars ?" 
 
 " Why, certainly," replied the judge, 
 taking out his pocket-book; " but weren't 
 you paid off to-day ? " 
 
 " Yes, but you know Mr. Bruce always 
 takes our checks to the bank and brings 
 back the money to us at the schoolhouse, 
 which saves us lots of trouble. To-day 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 65 
 
 just as he was coming out of the bank he 
 got a telegram calling him to Boston, and 
 barely caught the train. So we shan't get 
 our money till Monday." 
 
 " well, I am very glad to lend it to 
 you," said the judge. 
 
 He went on to his office and called up the 
 station agent. 
 
 " Did Mr. Bruce go away this after- 
 noon ? " 
 
 " Yes; he took the four o'clock train." 
 
 " Did he say where he was going? I 
 want to communicate with him." 
 
 " He called for a ticket for Boston, but 
 the train was drawing out and he jumped 
 on board without it." 
 
 The judge called up the chief of police, 
 Boston. 
 
 " This is Judge Fellows. Yes. Thank 
 you. It is about a confidence man, been 
 
66 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 teaching school here, became well estab- 
 lished, suddenly got hold of a lot of money, 
 and lit out. He took the four o'clock train 
 and said he was going to Boston; pretty 
 sure sign he wasn't, but I thought I would 
 call you up. Forty years old, five feet nine, 
 a hundred and eighty, smooth face except 
 for silky black mustache, hair black and 
 straight, smug appearance, well dressed, 
 dark mixed suit, black derby; looks like a 
 well-to-do club man. Thank you. I don't 
 expect you to find him, but if you do call 
 me up. Don't under any circumstances let 
 the newspapers get hold of it." 
 
 Then he called up the chief of police, 
 New York. 
 
 " This is Judge Fellows. Yes. Yes, 
 I remember. is that you, Kafferty ? I 
 recognize your voice now; glad you happen 
 to be on duty. I never had a case brought 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 67 
 
 "before me in better shape; you had taken 
 care that every link of the evidence was 
 ready when wanted. 
 
 " Rrell, this is not nearly so important 
 a matter; it is only a confidence man who 
 has got away with a few thousand dollars, 
 but of course we should like to nab him if 
 we can. Thank you. 
 
 " He went on the four o'clock this after- 
 noon, saying he was going to Boston. Prob- 
 -ably he caught the Empire State at Albany 
 and went to New York. You might tele- 
 phone up to the station and see if any of 
 your men happened to observe him. 
 
 " Very good looking, like a prosperous 
 real estate or insurance man, medium height, 
 moderately heavy build, dark clothes, white 
 linen, black derby hat, black straight hair 
 just a little long, silky black mustache, 
 cheerful expression, good manners. 
 
68 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 " Yes. Yes, it is very characteristic of 
 him. You don't say so! For forgery! 
 Well, well; and I have been on the bench, 
 twenty-two years and hired him for a teach- 
 er. It ought to keep me modest. Well, 
 nab him if you can. Above all, don't let 
 a word of it get into the newspapers." 
 IV 
 
 About eleven the next morning Judge 
 Fellows called on Mr. Burbank. 
 
 " Burbank, have you five thousand dol- 
 lars you don't know what to do with ? " 
 
 "No; but if you want it I have five 
 thousand dollars I do know what to do 
 with; " and he reached for his check-book. 
 
 " I don't think it will require quite all of 
 it, but it will cut out a good slice of it." 
 
 " What is it?" 
 
 " Bruce is a scoundrel; he has absconded 
 with some thousands of dollars." 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 69 
 
 " Bruce an absconder! How did you dis- 
 cover it ? " 
 
 " At the board meeting last night Nut- 
 ting happened to mention that Bruce had 
 just borrowed two hundred dollars of him. 
 He had borrowed the same amount of me 
 that day." 
 
 " And of me too." 
 
 " I thought likely. So I changed the 
 subject, adjourned the meeting, and walked 
 down the street with Nutting. I chatted 
 a little on common-places, and then asked 
 him how Bruce came to be in need of money. 
 I found Bruce had pretended Mrs. Hartwell 
 needed it. 
 
 " I got away from him as soon as I could 
 and hurried to Mrs. Hartwell's, troubled be- 
 cause I had lately advised her to sell some 
 Sea Shore stock. I was too late; she had 
 sold it and given the proceeds, some eigh- 
 
70 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 teen hundred dollars, to Bruce, in currency. 
 Then I found he had taken the teachers 
 checks to the bank and gone off with their 
 money." 
 
 " Anybody else ? " 
 
 " Yes, the Baptist minister; eight hun- 
 dred dollars." 
 
 " Eight hundred! Where did he get 
 that much?" 
 
 " It seems in college he had a scholarship 
 of two hundred a year. He has always re- 
 garded that money as a loan, and has saved 
 up the money to repay it as an addition to 
 that particular fund. He had confided in 
 Bruce, who applauded his sentiment and 
 offered to take the money directly to the 
 treasurer of Harvard." 
 
 " And the minister gave it to him! What 
 fools we mortals be." 
 
 " I don't think the minister is to be 
 
Of 
 
 WITHOUT CBEDENTIALS 71 
 
 blamed. You and I introduced the man 
 here as worthy to be principal of our school. 
 We were supposed to know him, and we are 
 responsible for him. The only thing I see 
 for us to do is to make all this money good 
 and keep the thing quiet. I have been 
 president of this board seventeen years; 
 you have been chairman of the teachers 
 committee nearly as long; I take it we can 
 better afford to put up three or four thous- 
 and apiece than to have it known we are so 
 little to be trusted. For my part, I think 
 we are lucky that it is only in money mat- 
 ters he has proved unworthy. I called up 
 the police and find he is well known to 
 them ; he has served a term for forgery. 
 
 " By the way, did you write to the fel- 
 low's references ? " 
 
 Mr. Burbank looked blank and then re- 
 flective. Instinctively he had put his thumb 
 
72 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 and index finger*, into his right waistcoat 
 pocket. " Wait a minute," he said; and 
 presently he came back with a fancy waist- 
 coat. He felt in the right lower pocket and 
 took out a piece of paper; it was that on 
 which the judge had written the names of 
 the men to whom Mr. Bruce had referred. 
 
 " You see how it was," Mr. Burbank 
 said; " I never try to carry anything in my 
 mind; I always make a memorandum and 
 put it in my vest pocket. I remember now 
 that the day we hired Bruce it suddenly 
 turned cold in the afternoon. I changed 
 this summer vest for a thicker one without 
 looking in the pocket, and I haven't worn 
 it since. 
 
 " See here, judge, I will straighten up 
 these accounts myself; I am the one who is 
 responsible." 
 
 u no," said the judge, "it must be 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 73 
 
 share and share alike. I am not a million- 
 aire like you, but I have never yet shirked 
 my share and I am not going to begin now. 
 You probably would have got no replies if 
 you had written, and would have forgotten 
 all about it. What a magnificent bluff that 
 was of the twenty- dollar bill for telegrams. 
 
 " Now this is what I propose. In the 
 first place we must have a man here Monday 
 to take Bruce's place. We will call up Ap- 
 pleton by telephone and leave it to him. 
 Let him use the long-distance telephone all 
 day to-morrow if necessary, at our expense, 
 but let him get a good man here; we won't 
 limit him as to salary for this last month." 
 
 " That is a good idea." 
 
 " Then the first thing Monday morning 
 we will have a bank messenger take over to 
 the schoolhouse the amount of the salaries, 
 and the teachers will understand that as 
 
74 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 soon as Mr. Bruce found he could not re- 
 turn he sent the money back to the bank." 
 
 "That is right." 
 
 " Then I will send a draft to a friend of 
 mine in Boston and have him pay over the 
 eight hundred dollars to the treasurer of 
 Harvard, and have the treasurer send re- 
 ceipt direct to the Baptist minister." 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Then we will pay up Nutting and any- 
 body else we find he victimized. As for the 
 mortgage, I am in luck. In making an 
 exchange of property in Boston, I got hold 
 of a dwelling-house on which there were 
 two mortgages, a savings-bank mortgage, 
 which I have already paid, and a second 
 mortgage for two thousand dollars which 
 had been paid, but for which the owner 
 instead of cancelling it, had taken from the 
 mortgagee an assignment in blank, think- 
 
WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 75 
 
 ing he might want to borrow the money 
 again. This assignment of course I have. 
 I have only to fill the blank with her name 
 and hand it to her, and she will be sure 
 Bruce did just what he promised to." 
 
 " And you pay up a four per cent mort- 
 gage, and let a six per cent mortgage on the 
 same property run indefinitely ? " 
 
 " it is only a matter of forty dollars 
 a year difference, and Hartwell was a mighty 
 good friend of mine; that is all right." 
 
 " It is all right, but half that forty dol- 
 lars a year is mine." 
 
 All these plans were carried out. Mr. 
 Bruce was never heard of again in Winchen- 
 don. It was understood that the telegram 
 which took him away summoned him to 
 Europe, and only two men there know that 
 the eulogistic remembrances of Mr. Bruce 
 are not wholly deserved. They are still 
 
76 WITHOUT CREDENTIALS 
 
 president of the board and chairman of the 
 teachers committee respectively, but just 
 at present they are not hiring teachers 
 without credentials. 
 
JOT, THE JANITOR 
 
JOT, THE JANITOR 
 
 Thirty-four years, sir, altogether; that is, 
 I have been regularly appointed that long, 
 but as a matter of fact I have done the work 
 more or less for more than fifty years. My 
 father was janitor before me, and the earliest 
 thing I remember was coming to the school 
 with him, holding his big finger in my little 
 hand. Then I began to help more or less, 
 and in his last years I did most of the work, 
 so really I am as you say a veteran. 
 
 Not the same building ? Well, I should 
 say not, sir. I have seen three buildings on 
 this very site. Fifty years ago we had just 
 
 a plain two-story wooden schoolhouse, with 
 
 (79) 
 
80 JOT, THE JANITOR 
 
 wooden benches, and eight wood stoves, 
 one for each room. Many a time my back 
 has ached carrying wood up those stairs. 
 
 In 1865 we put up a brick building, and 
 proud we were of it. A picture of it and 
 all the floor plans were put into Barnard's 
 American Journal of Education. It was 
 three stories high, and had cherry desks 
 with iron standards, and chairs to match. 
 It was heated by a Culver furnace, set in 
 the cellar in double walls of brick masonry, 
 drawing in and heating the cold air from 
 the outside, and sending it into every room 
 by registers. People came from miles 
 around to see that furnace, and father was 
 very proud to explain how it worked. 
 
 But it gave us lots of trouble. At first 
 we had poor coal, that used to slag; we 
 used to take turns getting up nights to rake 
 it down ; even then it went out sometimes. 
 
JOT, THE JANITOR 81 
 
 Then the old teachers that used to be in the 
 other building complained of the air; they 
 said the life was burned out of it. They 
 would open the windows, but that would 
 let cold air on the heads of the children, 
 and altogether that furnace made our lives 
 a burden. 
 
 Then came the big fire, in 1872. Father 
 was dead then and I was janitor. I was 
 one of the first to hear the alarm, and I 
 worked all night, first trying to save the 
 buildings farther down the street, then try- 
 ing to save the schoolhouse, then trying to 
 save all I could out of the schoolhouse. I 
 did get out most of the teachers' books and 
 some of the best apparatus, and I was in 
 bed for a fortnight afterward ; but the 
 schoolhouse went even the walls had to 
 come down. 
 
 Then the board put up this building, 
 
82 JOT, THE JANITOR 
 
 with steam heating by indirect radiation, 
 and a good building it is. I know every 
 inch of it, and I see every foot of it every 
 day I live. 
 
 I understand that in some of the later 
 big buildings the janitors put on a good 
 many airs. Somebody told me the janitor 
 in the new high school at Pepperell called 
 himself custodian, went around in a Prince 
 Albert coat, and the first time there was 
 snow telephoned down to the superintend- 
 ent's office to have a man sent up to shovel 
 the walks. Father wasn't that kind of a 
 janitor, and if I had been inclined to be he 
 would have thrashed it out of me. There 
 has never a bushel of coal gone into this 
 building that I haven't shovelled in myself. 
 I won't even have it put in with a chute. 
 I want to see the coal I use, and more than 
 one load has gone back to the yard because 
 
JOT, THE JANITOR 83 
 
 it wasn't up to the standard. I would 
 rather shovel coal into the bin than slag 
 out of the furnace. 
 
 yes, sir, there have been a good many 
 principals here in those fifty years, and a 
 great variety too. As for teachers, there 
 have been hundreds. 
 
 Bad to have so many changes ? I don't 
 know, sir. As a matter of fact the teachers 
 don't make so very much difference in a 
 school. If you have the right janitor, who 
 keeps the temperature even and the air 
 fresh and everything neat, the school will 
 be all right. The best of what children 
 learn in school doesn't come out of books. 
 
 Children of my own, sir ? no. I 
 never married. Wanted to ? Why, not to 
 say so, sir. There was only one, and she 
 was so far away it would be as though you 
 
84 JOT, THE JANITOR 
 
 longed for the Princess of Wales, or the 
 evening star. 
 
 Well, sir, it was like this. One first 
 Monday in September, twenty-four years 
 ago last month, I was as usual running my 
 eye over the new pupils and the new teach- 
 ers, to see what sort of material we were 
 going^to have, when up came a little body 
 who might be either a pupil or a teacher; I 
 couldn't tell which she was. She didn't 
 seem to know anyone, and she looked about 
 in a scared sort of way, uncertain where to 
 go. When she saw me she came up to me 
 after a little hesitation and asked : 
 
 " Can you direct me to the principal's 
 room ? " 
 
 From the way she spoke I knew she was 
 a teacher, and of course I lifted my cap to 
 her and offered to conduct her. 
 
 I tell you I was sorry for her. We had 
 
JOT, THE JANITOR 85 
 
 at that time a real brute for principal, Mr. 
 Harder. We have had principals with bad 
 manners, and principals that were rough 
 spoken; our principal now used to be that 
 way till he married. But then those other 
 men had kind enough hearts when you got 
 at them, and as a rule I have found that 
 outspoken men are square. 
 
 But Mr. Harder wasn't square, and I 
 don't believe he had any heart at all. Why, 
 you won't believe it, but once that man 
 threw a kitten out of a third-story window. 
 We had been troubled with mice some of 
 the children carried lunches and there 
 would be crumbs in the desks so I brought 
 this kitten to school. It was the most 
 trustful little thing; it came right from my 
 boarding-place, where its mother was a pet, 
 and the children here just loved it, so it 
 saw a friend in everybody. 
 
86 JOT, THE JANITOR 
 
 One morning when I came to school, that 
 kitten, which had always run up to me and 
 rubbed itself against my leg, shrank away 
 in a corner shivering-scared at my ap- 
 proach. Then I knew that somebody had 
 abused it, and I wondered who in the build- 
 ing had a heart black enough to be willing 
 to destroy that poor little animal's trust in 
 human nature. 
 
 I determined to find out, and I did find 
 out. It was Mr. Harder. He had come 
 across it on the landing and kicked it down 
 the stairs, and then coming up to it where 
 it lay shuddering he had kicked it again, 
 way across the hall ; one of the boys saw 
 him and told me. 
 
 Well, he and I had some words about 
 that. I told him the kitten was my kitten, 
 and was necessary there, and had a right to 
 decent treatment there. He said he was 
 
JOT, THE JANITOB 87 
 
 principal of the school and had charge of 
 the building, and was the only judge of 
 what it was proper for him to do. When I 
 began to say some more he threatened to 
 report me to the board for insubordination, 
 and I told him if he did I would report him 
 at the same meeting for abuse of a dumb 
 animal, and for setting an example before 
 the boy who saw him that all the teaching 
 he could do would never make up for. It 
 ended in a drawn game, for we neither re- 
 ported the other, but he hated me and the 
 kitten. 
 
 I did my best to keep the kitten out of 
 his way, but one day it wandered up to his 
 class-room. He was giving a demonstration 
 on the blackboard, and noticed that some- 
 thing was distracting the attention of the 
 class. He turned around and saw this kit- 
 ten. His scholars said his eyes actually 
 
88 JOT, THE JANITOR 
 
 glared as he grabbed it and threw it with 
 all his strength right through the open win- 
 dow. The girls screamed and two of them 
 fainted. As for the boys, some of them 
 ran to the window and reported that it had 
 fallen on the brick sidewalk and seemed to 
 be dead, and all of them looked ugly. 
 There was pretty close to a rebellion then 
 and there; I only wonder they didn't chuck 
 him out of the window after the kitten. 
 
 It got into the newspapers and finally 
 resulted in his dismissal, but at the time I 
 speak of he was still here, and I had 
 thought this very morning that he was if 
 possible uglier-tempered than ever. So I 
 was sorry enough for this poor little creat- 
 ure I was taking to him, who seemed to be 
 making her first venture out from a loving 
 home into a hard-hearted world. 
 
JOT, THE JANITOR 89 
 
 " If you will give me your name I will 
 introduce you," I said. 
 
 " Thank you; I am Miss Rulison," she 
 replied. " I am to have the third grade." 
 
 I introduced her to Mr. Harder, who 
 browbeat her as usual, snorted his anger 
 when he found she had had no experience, 
 declared that she was sure to fail, and told 
 me to show her to her room. 
 
 " Is he always like that ? " she asked in 
 terror, as we walked down the hall. 
 
 " Well, he isn't angelic, miss," I admit- 
 ted, " but you never mind ; you will find 
 plenty of good friends here." 
 
 " thank you," she said. " I am sure 
 I shall find you one." And although she 
 knew that I was the janitor she held out 
 her hand to me, and shook hands not con- 
 descendingly, but with a good grip, just as 
 you shake hands with a friend you are glad 
 
90 JOT, THE JASTITOK 
 
 to see. And then she asked, " Will you 
 tell me your name ? " 
 
 You could have knocked me over with a 
 feather. No teacher ever asked me my 
 name before; it was always, " Janitor, can 
 you give me a little more heat? ", " See 
 here, janitor, my room hasn't been swept 
 out since Tuesday," and so on. Mr. Har- 
 der used to call me and speak of me as 
 " Jot ", but then that was because it made 
 me seem a servant rather than an official. 
 When there were visitors and he felt fero- 
 ciously funny he would call out to me, 
 " Here, Jot or Tittle, whatever your name 
 is, fetch another chair." 
 
 But Miss Rulison wanted to know my 
 name, so as to call me by it; and she al- 
 ways did call me " Mr. Jot". It isn't 
 much of a name, sir, but if you could hear 
 
JOT, THE JANITOR 91 
 
 her speak it you wouldn't swap it for an 
 English title. 
 
 From that first day Miss Rulison and I 
 were allies. She knew I would stand by 
 her in any emergency, and I knew that 
 every morning her little hand would give 
 mine a firm shake, and her sweet eyes* 
 would look into mine straight and trust- 
 ful. 
 
 I wasn't so sure of the afternoons. It 
 was a hard term for her, and often after 
 school was out I found her still at her desk 
 her head bowed upon her hands. She was 
 never troubled to have me see her so, for 
 she used to confide in me, and often when 
 she seemed almost ready to give up I could 
 find something to say that encouraged her. 
 
 One night I was kept in another part of 
 the building later than usual, and as I 
 started for her room I saw Mr. Harder com- 
 
92 JOT, THE JANITOR 
 
 ing out with such an exultant face I felt 
 sure he had been abusing her. I did not 
 get to her any too soon. She was desper- 
 ate. She would not tell me what Mr. Har- 
 der had said, but she declared it was impos- 
 sible for her to enter the building again. 
 For a time her indignation had the upper 
 hand, but presently it gave way to grief, 
 she began to cry, and well, sir, you prob- 
 ably won't believe it, but she threw her 
 arms around my neck and sobbed on my 
 shoulder. It was my working blouse I had 
 on, sir, an old, worn-out coat; but ever 
 since that day that blouse has been wrapped 
 up and locked away, and when I am dead 
 they will find I have left just one direction 
 about my funeral, that in my coffin I wear 
 that blouse. 
 
 of course it wasn't the same to her it 
 was to me. Why, she said herself between 
 
JOT, THE JANITOR 93 
 
 her sobs, " Some way you seem more like a 
 father to me than anyone else, now that 
 mine is gone." Not that I really was so 
 much older. I was thirty-six then, and she 
 was twenty-two; you see I couldn't have 
 been her father. But then that was the 
 way it seemed to her, and of course I never 
 tried to change it. 
 
 And then there couldn't have been any- 
 thing between us, you know. She was born 
 and bred a lady to the finger-tips, and I 
 never took much to schooling; did not even 
 get into the high school. Of course I have 
 always tried to correct my language by the 
 teachers', so as to set a good example before 
 the children, but I could always work bet- 
 ter with my hands than with my brains. 
 
 I experimented some. I knew Miss Kuli- 
 son was literary, and I had read none of 
 her kind of books. So I went to a book- 
 
94 JOT, THE JANITOR 
 
 store in Ipswich (I didn't want to do it at 
 home), and I asked the clerk to show me 
 some way bang-up literature, the top notch. 
 He handed me Milton's poems, and told me 
 there was nothing higher up. I asked him 
 if literary people would know that book, 
 and he said yes, by heart. 
 
 So I bought it, and I read Paradise Lost 
 clear through. It came hard, and when 
 I got to the end I doubted whether Adam's 
 and Eve's steps were any more wandering 
 and slow than mine had been. But I want- 
 ed to see whether I had any literary taste 
 or could get any, and I did find some places 
 that I could understand, and some lines I 
 had heard before. 
 
 I began to try these on Miss Rulison, to 
 see if she would recognize me as being liter- 
 ary too. One day I remarked, sort of 
 thrown-in like, " ' Better to reign in Hell 
 
JOT, THE JANITOR 95 
 
 than serve in Heaven,' as Milton says." 
 Miss Eulison lifted her eyebrows a little, 
 but made no reply. Another time I asked, 
 " Do you remember where Milton says in 
 Paradise Lost: 
 
 ' How beauty is excelled by manly grace 
 And wisdom, which alone is truly fair ' ? " 
 "I never read a line of Paradise Lost," 
 she replied with an amused smile; and then 
 I knew it was useless for me to try to get 
 into her class. As a janitor I was a suc- 
 cess, but if I tried to be literary I should 
 only be laughed at. 
 
 However, she still gave me her good firm 
 grip every morning, and still her eyes looked 
 trustfully straight into mine; why should 
 I dream of more ? Yet more came to me; 
 what an exulting delight it is to recall how 
 it came to me. 
 
 Near the end of the term one afternoon 
 
96 JOT, THE JANITOR 
 
 I noticed Mr. Harder making a tour of the 
 rooms. He had on his ugliest face, and I 
 hoped he would keep away from Miss Ruli- 
 son, especially as I had observed in the 
 morning that she was not looking as well 
 as usual. 
 
 Luckily he found so much to growl about 
 in the upper rooms that school was dis- 
 missed before he got to the third grade, and 
 I breathed a sigh of relief. I hung about, 
 however, and noticed that when Miss Ruli- 
 son started home he followed her. I got on 
 my overcoat in a hurry, and followed too. 
 It was December and dark, so I kept within 
 hearing of them without being seen; in 
 fact, his voice was so loud and rough he 
 could be heard a good ways off. As I 
 feared, he was declaring her work an utter 
 failure; assuring her she was the weakest 
 teacher in school, with no natural adapta- 
 
JOT, THE JANITOR 97 
 
 tion; and he finally advied her to give up 
 the work and marry. 
 
 She had replied with weariness but pa- 
 tiently until that last suggestion. 
 
 " It is within your province to advise me 
 about my school work," she said, " but not 
 about my private affairs." 
 
 " But suppose I make your private affairs 
 mine," he said; " suppose I marry you my- 
 self ? " 
 
 I dug my finger nails into my palms and 
 managed to hold back. So this was what 
 the coarse old bully had been leering at her 
 for. Miss Kulison gave him a glance that 
 ought to have petrified him, and said: 
 
 " The conversation stops here, Mr. Hard- 
 er. Good night." 
 
 " It doesn't stop here," he said, grabbing 
 her by the wrist. " It doesn't stop until I 
 get ready to have it stop. You are in my 
 
98 JOT, THE JANITOR 
 
 power. You have no money and no friends, 
 and you have got to either teach or marry. 
 If I declare you a failure as a teacher, you 
 must marry, and you had better take me 
 while you can get me." 
 
 " Kelease me, sir," she said, trying to 
 pull away her wrist. 
 
 " Not by a d d sight," he said. 
 
 You will wonder how I could have held 
 in so long, but how my fist shot out and 
 how snug these knuckles landed on his right 
 eye. He screamed like a baby, and when 
 he saw who I was he trembled with rage 
 and rushed at me to annihilate me, I being 
 so much smaller and the janitor. However, 
 like all bullies he was cowardly and couldn't 
 stand pain, so inside of a minute a blow 
 under the chin sent him sprawling. 
 
 " Now, Miss Rulison," I said, " if you 
 will let me I will walk home with you." 
 
JOT, THE JANITOR 99 
 
 Out came that little hand for a warmer 
 'shake than ever, and then it nestled trust- 
 fully in my arm. So I saw her home, and 
 when we got to the door she said to me : 
 
 " Mr. Jot, you are the best friend a girl 
 ^ver had." 
 
 Then well, sir, you may not believe it, 
 but she threw her arms around me and 
 kissed me; kissed me, the janitor; kissed 
 me on the lips. It made me feel as if it 
 would be a joy to fight the whole world for 
 her 
 
 Is she still here ? no, sir; her kind 
 don't teach long. She was married the next 
 June to a young physician from Brooklyn 
 who visited here that winter. I saw him ; 
 he was literary, tall, manly, on the 'varsity 
 foot-ball team people said; probably de- 
 served his luck. No, sir, I haven't seen her 
 since. 
 
A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 I 
 
 " girls, we are going to have another 
 hard day," sighed Miss Lewis, coming back 
 from the window to the group of teachers 
 standing by the radiator in the A grammar 
 room; " he's walking fast, and his hat is 
 tipped forward." 
 
 " I hope he will keep out of my room," 
 said Miss Andrus; "everything has gone 
 wrong this week, and if he comes in and 
 scolds I shall just break down." 
 
 " I knew this would be one of his cross 
 days," said Miss Ferret, in whose sharp pro- 
 file the nose turned up just a little at the 
 
 tip; " all Tuesdays are cross days." 
 (103) 
 
104 A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 " Why ? " asked two or three of the oth- 
 ers, in chorus. 
 
 " 0," said Miss Ferret with a smirk, " I 
 found out that at his boarding-house they 
 have buckwheat cakes on Tuesday morning. 
 He always eats too many of them and they 
 don't agree with him." 
 
 " Can't you get Mrs. Bacon to stop hav- 
 ing them ?" asked Miss Timrod; "he is 
 hard enough to teach under when his diges- 
 tion is normal." 
 
 By this time Mr. Eollins had reached his 
 office. As he unlocked the door his first 
 assistant, a tired-looking woman, came up 
 and said: 
 
 " Miss Avery is down sick at last. She 
 won't be able to come back this term." 
 
 " This is very unfortunate," said Mr. 
 Rollins; " her room is behind now, and to 
 
A MASTERFUL MAX 105 
 
 put a new teacher in there five weeks before 
 examination means failure." 
 
 " She probably did not break down ma- 
 liciously," said Miss Marshall, with a tinge 
 of sarcasm. " She should not have been 
 here yesterday; when she went home she 
 looked as if she ought to be in bed. Her 
 mother sent for the doctor and he telephoned 
 half an hour ago that it would be quite out 
 of the question for her to teach before next 
 term; she is threatened with typhoid fever." 
 
 " Did you telephone for a substitute ? " 
 
 " I did. She is here now, in my room. 
 Shall I bring her to you ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 When Miss Marshall brought in Miss May, 
 Mr. Rollins scowled at her. 
 
 " You don't weigh a hundred pounds," 
 he said; " couldn't the superintendent send 
 us somebody grown up ? " 
 
106 A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 " I weigh a hundred and two," she re- 
 plied with dignity, " and I am full-grown." 
 
 " Well, you don't look it," he said cross- 
 ly. " Ever taught ?" 
 
 " Yes; in Elizabeth, Montana." 
 
 " Are the schools graded there ? " 
 
 Miss May's eyebrows lifted a little; the 
 ward schools there had been much larger 
 and better equipped than this. But she 
 only replied, " Yes, Mr. Rollins." 
 
 " What grade did you have ? " 
 
 " The grammar grades." 
 
 " You will have 8th grade here, and I 
 warn you it is a hard room. The teacher 
 has not been well this term, and the new 
 class has been running away with her." 
 
 " I shall do my best with them." 
 
 " Yes, but they will pick you up and 
 chuck you out of the window. Well, it 
 can't be helped now; we've got to begin 
 
A MASTERFUL MAN 107 
 
 with somebody. Miss Marshall will show 
 you the room." 
 
 II 
 
 About eleven o'clock Mr. Rollins strolled 
 into the 8th grade room. The period was 
 in American history, and Miss May after 
 telling them that the fort spoken of in the 
 lesson had been within walking distance of 
 the schoolhouse had been asking how many 
 of the pupils knew the location, why the- 
 fort was built there, what were some of the 
 events that occurred there, and so on, con- 
 necting the background of the day's lesson 
 so closely with what they themselves had 
 seen and known that they were all eagerly 
 intent. 
 
 As Mr. Rollins came in she was telling a 
 most exciting story of Indian capture and 
 rescue, so exciting that the pupils hardly 
 noticed Mr. Rollins's entrance. Perhaps it. 
 
108 A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 was partly on this account that he listened 
 disapprovingly. Miss May continued her 
 story, and presently he went away without 
 speaking. 
 
 But after the pupils were dismissed he 
 stepped into her room on his way down 
 stairs. 
 
 " Miss May," he said, " I see you have 
 still to learn the first principle of teaching." 
 
 " And that is?" 
 
 " That teaching is measured not by what 
 you tell your pupils but by what they tell 
 you." 
 
 " Are you sure they cannot tell me a good 
 part of what I told them ? " 
 
 Mr. Rollins stared at her; he was not ac- 
 customed to have his teachers answer back. 
 
 " It wouldn't make any difference whether 
 they could repeat those cock-and-bull sto- 
 ries or not. Such stories are" not given in 
 
A MASTERFUL MAX 109 
 
 the regents examinations. You are here to 
 see that they know the history as it is laid 
 down in the book." 
 
 " But I found the history as laid down in 
 the book, and a very poor book you use here, 
 had no interest for them; so I tried to cor- 
 relate it with something that had interest. 
 I think you will find that they will pass an 
 examination on the lesson as well as on my 
 cock-and-bull stories." 
 
 Mr. Eollins was ready to choke ; this snip 
 of a girl was actually defying him. He put 
 on his most impressive air. " Do you know 
 the meaning of the word education?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " I know that hardly any two authorities 
 agree upon a definition," she said. 
 
 " It comes from educere, e, out and ducere, 
 to draw, to draw out," he said. " You are 
 not to pour information into pupils; you 
 are to draw it out of them." 
 
110 A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 Miss May smiled quietly, and exasperat- 
 ingly. " Isn't there a difference of opin- 
 ion about that derivation ? " she asked. 
 " Doesn't the ducere mean rather to lead, 
 to train ? Of course originally there is not 
 much information in children's minds to 
 draw out; in fact, a child's mind is mainly 
 an interrogation point. But by giving 
 them the right information we may interest 
 them to go on and get further information 
 for themselves." 
 
 " We can't stop to argue at dinner-time," 
 said Mr Rollins retiring with further marks 
 of disapproval. Miss May must have got 
 her surface arguments out of some teacher's 
 journal. He hated teacher's journals. If 
 he were examining teachers for a license, 
 his first question should be, " Do you take 
 an educational journal ? ", and he would 
 license all who didn't. 
 
A MASTERFUL MAN 111 
 
 As for Miss May, he simply detested her. 
 Ill 
 
 John Eollins prided himself on being a 
 masterful man. He could be that without 
 much effort, without overcoming a certain 
 shyness that it was easy to conceal by bully- 
 ing. So his manner every year grew more 
 and more brusque, his voice harsher; he 
 even affected clothing of coarse texture and 
 rough surface. He liked Browning's lines: 
 The better the uncouther; 
 Do roses stick like burrs ? 
 
 Marriage might have modified him, but 
 till recently that had been impossible. His 
 younger brother Ned (only they two were 
 left of the family) had married imprudently, 
 had struggled along with a rapidly increas- 
 ing family, and had depended on John. 
 John had been disagreeable to Ned, and 
 was cordially hated by Ned's shiftless wife, 
 
112 . A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 but he had paid out half his salary to keep 
 Ned's family from starving. Fortunately 
 Ned's business had prospered, and he was 
 now independent of John. But John had 
 been called a crusty old bachelor so long 
 that he considered single-blessedness an in- 
 tegral part of his character, and he had no 
 thought of marriage. Now that he was 
 saving money he contemplated perhaps en- 
 dowing a library to build up a collection in 
 some speciality, or possibly establishing 
 somewhere a scholarship for poor boys. 
 
 He was not so thoughtless of others as he 
 seemed. Miss Marshall had been shocked 
 that the news of Miss Avery's break-down 
 elicited only regret for the harm to her 
 room. But as a matter of fact Mr. Eollins 
 had called on Miss Avery after school, and 
 said: " Miss Avery, you ought to be 
 ashamed of neglecting yourself so. Don't 
 
A MASTEEFUL MAN 113 
 
 hurry back. You just lie here quietly. 
 Don't you dare come back till you are 
 thoroughly well. We will take good care of 
 your room, and it will be waiting for you 
 when you return, whether it is four weeks 
 or four months." 
 
 It was just what Miss Avery wanted to 
 hear; it did her more good than all the 
 doctor's medicine. Yet it was somehow 
 said ungraciously; a person in the next 
 room hearing the voice without distinguish- 
 ing the words would have thought he was 
 scolding her. Even her mother, who stood 
 by the bedside, wondered that he could not 
 speak more humanly. 
 
 The fact is, all these years John Eollins 
 had been repressing his kindly instincts. 
 To all of us there is continually appearing 
 the opportunity to say and do little things 
 that might make others happier. Every 
 
114 A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 time we follow the suggestion, the sugges- 
 tion next time is stronger. Every time we 
 neglect it, next time the impulse is weaker. 
 For the ten earliest years of his full man- 
 hood, John Eollins had said to himself, 
 " That is not the sort of thing for a mas- 
 terful man," and now he was usually blind 
 to the opportunities. 
 
 IV 
 
 It disturbed him that Miss May should 
 have questioned his authority, and he re- 
 solved to stamp out this insurrection with- 
 out delay. So he went down to her room 
 the next afternoon, and found her teaching 
 interest. 
 
 " I see you are using the 6 per cent 
 method," he said, after the class was dis- 
 missed. " In this school we calculate in- 
 terest by aliquot parts." 
 
 " Very well," she said; "if you prefer 
 
A MASTERFUL MAN 115 
 
 that method I will teach it. I see the book 
 gives only the 6 per cent method." 
 
 " Yes," he said, " but the aliquot parts 
 method is so much shorter." 
 
 " It has never seemed so to me," she 
 replied. 
 
 " Why, see," he said, going to the board 
 and working a problem both ways. " There 
 ,are fewer than two-thirds as many figures 
 by the aliquot part method." 
 
 " True," she replied, " of that particu- 
 lar problem, but try this;" and she put 
 .another beside it, in which the 6 per cent 
 method was much shorter. Then she 
 pointed out why it was shorter and in what 
 class of problems it must be shorter, and 
 showed by reference to a book of regents 
 problems in arithmetic that this kind of 
 problems prevailed. 
 
 Mr. Rollins listened with growing dis- 
 
116 A MASTERFUL MAK 
 
 pleasure. He always kept heavy artillery 
 in reserve, and, cruel as it might seem, he 
 felt that now was the time to use it. 
 
 " Miss May," he said, solemnly, "if we 
 were constructing the science of arithmetic 
 this sort of reasoning might be tolerated; 
 principles have to be evolved and to evolve 
 them requires comparison and argument. 
 But fortunately the responsibility of de- 
 veloping this science and the other studies 
 of the curriculum does not devolve upon 
 us; all that is asked of us is to comprehend 
 them and be able to make them clear to 
 others. 
 
 " In other words we are to follow author- 
 ity in interpretation as well as in discipline, 
 and you are here not to argue with me but 
 to follow my instructions. I am a graduate 
 of Hiram college the college of which the 
 lamented Garfield was president; my di- 
 
A MASTERFUL MAN 117 
 
 ploma is evidence of mental discipline and 
 power of comprehension which cannot be 
 expected of the holder of a third-grade cer- 
 tificate. I can not always stop to explain 
 why a thing is so; it should be enough for 
 you if I tell you it is so. I am to lead; 
 you are to follow." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Miss May 
 humbly; " I will teach the aliquot part 
 method." 
 
 V 
 
 That evening his landlady had guests at 
 supper Mr. and Mrs. Parkhurst, a young 
 clergyman and his wife from a neighboring 
 town. 
 
 " By the way," said the lady, " you have 
 a Miss May in your school." 
 
 " She is doing substitute work just now," 
 said Mr. Rollins, not too cordially. 
 
 " You are lucky to have her, even tern- 
 
118 A MASTERFUL MAST 
 
 porarily. She was a classmate of mine at 
 Vassar, one of the most brilliant girls in 
 college. Then she went to the Teachers 
 college, and carried off the honors there." 
 
 " And is teaching here for ten dollars a 
 week ?" asked Mr. Kollins incredulously. 
 
 " she went from the Teachers college 
 to Elizabeth, Montana, as supervisor of 
 grammar grades, at a higher salary than 
 yours; but she had to come here for a time 
 on account of some property .interests, 
 while an estate is being settled, and being 
 here thought she might as well teach, since 
 she is very fond of it." 
 
 " But why didn't she explain who she 
 was?" 
 
 " That wouldn't be her way. She said 
 there were no places likely to be open here 
 which a third-grade teacher could not fill; 
 so she passed the ordinary uniform examin- 
 
A MASTERFUL MAN 119 
 
 ations, and never told your superintendent 
 that she was more than an inexperienced 
 country girl. She spends every other Sun- 
 day with me, and has told me a great deal 
 about your school." 
 
 Mr. Rollins looked at Mrs. Parkhurst 
 searchingly. She was speaking deferently; 
 could it be that Miss May had not revealed 
 what a clumsy and conceited ignoramus he 
 was ? 
 
 VI 
 
 He did not sleep much that night, and 
 the next afternoon at close of school he 
 went into Miss May's room. She was seated 
 at her desk, and rose. 
 
 " Please keep your seat," he said, stand- 
 ing on the floor below her desk, and leaning 
 with his elbow upon it. " I want to speak 
 to you at some length, if I may." 
 
 " I shall be glad to listen," she said. 
 
120 A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 " The Parkhursts took supper at Mrs. 
 Bacon's last night." 
 
 " Yes, I know. Mrs Bacon invited me 
 to meet them, but I had another engage- 
 ment." 
 
 " Mrs. Parkhurst told me that you were 
 a graduate of Vassar and of the Teachers 
 college, and in Montana had had a salary 
 of sixteen hundred dollars." 
 
 " I hope there was some more profitable 
 subject of conversation than my personal 
 history." 
 
 " Of course I know what you must think 
 of me after what I said to you yesterday. 
 I don't expect you to change your opinion, 
 but I want you to know that I am aware 
 what your opinion is and how just it is." 
 
 " I doubt if you know what my opinion 
 is," said Miss May, in a low tone. 
 
 " To you a college education doesn't 
 
A MASTERFUL MAN 121 
 
 mean much. It is one of the things that 
 come naturally into a life like yours, an in- 
 cident. You went to college as you eat din- 
 ner, as a matter of course. But to me it 
 was everything. I am not much now, but 
 if I had not gone to college I should be to- 
 day as I was before I went, a farm-hand at 
 a dollar a day, sleeping with the other hired 
 men in the attic. 
 
 " It was a struggle for me to go through 
 college. That pocket-book of yours there 
 cost more than I spent for food any term 
 I was at Hiram. The first term my chum 
 and I lived on hasty-pudding and molasses; 
 one week we went without the molasses; 
 a year later for two days I had no food at 
 all, and yet I studied and went to recita- 
 tions." 
 
 It was winter and the days were growing 
 short; it was becoming dusk about the desk, 
 
122 A MASTEKFUL MAN 
 
 and Miss May's face could hardly be distin- 
 guished. But she was glad, for what dropped 
 down unseen from her face upon her hand 
 would have glistened in the sunlight. 
 
 " What costs one so much one values. 
 I was never a good scholar; I was poorly 
 prepared, I was always behind my class, I 
 barely got through my final examinations, 
 very likely sympathy gave me my diploma. 
 At ten years old you had more culture than 
 I shall ever comprehend, not to say possess. 
 And yet my college education is my one 
 achievement. The question is not how lit- 
 tle Tarn with it, but how much less I should 
 have been without it. 
 
 " I knew you were teaching on a third- 
 grade certificate, and I supposed you were 
 an ordinary country girl moved into town." 
 
 " That shows that I do Vassar little cred- 
 it," 1 interposed Miss May. " One ought to 
 
A MASTEKFUL MAN 123 
 
 be able to show one has had college training 
 without wearing a Phi Beta Kappa pin." 
 
 " No," he said, " it only shows that I am 
 not accustomed to distinguish among wo- 
 men. I never in my life talked five min- 
 utes with any woman not a farmer's wife or a 
 boarding-house keeper or a teacher." 
 
 "It is worth while to be acquainted with 
 women outside those professions," sug- 
 gested Miss May. 
 
 " No doubt, but what is there in me to 
 interest a lady? For instance, everything 
 you wear and have about you is dainty and 
 expensive. I could not make you under- 
 stand what a wrench it was for me to order 
 a suit of clothes made to order; I had al- 
 ways bought them ready-made. I don't 
 belong in your set, to your kind of people; 
 it isn't my line, so I have had no chance to 
 know women and distinguish among them. 
 
124 A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 " This accounts for my speaking as I did 
 last night. I was too ignorant to see how 
 different you are from Miss Lewis or Miss 
 Ferret; I was not trying to see whether you 
 were different. I am not making an apolo- 
 gy; I was doing the best I knew how. Not 
 to know better was my misfortune. Of 
 course it simply amused you. I am trying 
 to make it clear that I see how just it was 
 you should be amused." 
 
 Miss May's voice wavered a little as she 
 said: 
 
 " It did not occur to me to be amused, 
 Mr. Rollins." 
 
 " Surely you could not be angry at such 
 absurd pretensions ? " he urged. 
 
 " No, it still less occurred to me to be 
 angry. Mr. Rollins, you really do not know 
 women very well." 
 
A MASTERFUL MAN 125 
 
 " No, I do not know them at all; this is 
 the first time I have wished I did." 
 
 " If you knew women, you would know 
 that there are two qualities in men they 
 value above everything else strength and 
 honesty. You are strong and you are hon- 
 est one glance tells that. A woman never 
 ridicules a man who is strong and honest." 
 
 " But what must you have thought when 
 I, barely scraped through Hiram, lorded my 
 intellectual supremacy over you, a star at 
 Vassar?" 
 
 " What impressed me was how much col- 
 lege meant to you. I wish Vassar meant as 
 much to me." 
 
 " But you did not need Vassar as I need- 
 ed Hiram." 
 
 " And I did not get so much from it. 
 I honor you for the steadfastness of purpose 
 that carried you through; it is a record to 
 
126 A MASTERFUL 
 
 be proud of, a basis for a noble and useful 
 life." 
 
 " You really do not despise me ? " 
 
 " I do not know a man whom I respect 
 more." 
 
 " But as an educational expert, you must 
 see how lacking I am as a school principal." 
 
 " I think you are a very good principal. 
 You are master of the situation; that is the 
 fundamental thing; nobody ever questions 
 who is the head of the school." 
 
 " Yes, but I am a tyrant; I should have 
 tyrannized over you if you had been an 
 ordinary teacher." 
 
 " That is true; and yet I heard some of 
 your teachers discussing you with the teach- 
 ers of another school. The other teachers 
 said, ' Our principal never spoke a cross 
 word to us in his life.' And your teachers 
 said, ' No, and he never stood by you if 
 
A MASTERFUL MAN 127 
 
 there was trouble. Mr. Rollins is cross, 
 but you know where to find him, every 
 time.' " 
 
 " Thank you, Miss May; I am glad they 
 said that; I hope it is true." 
 
 " Then the boys swear by you; they know 
 you are absolutely square, as they say." 
 
 " I never have any trouble with the 
 boys; we are good friends. But to you I 
 must seem such an untrained teacher." 
 
 " From the standpoint of pedagogical 
 formulas you are, but some way what you 
 teach sticks. I have been surprised to see 
 how sure your boys are of what they have 
 learned from you." 
 
 " My boys get on a good deal better than 
 my girls." 
 
 " The girls are afraid of you, which is 
 unfortunate ; and your women teachers 
 dare not say their souls are their own, 
 
128 A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 which is a calamity. Your heart is all 
 right, but your manners need over-hauling. ' * 
 
 " they are hopeless. You must re- 
 member I was brought up a farm hand." 
 
 " It isn't that; your instincts are true 
 enough; in all this conversation to-night 
 you have shown the thought and the ex- 
 pression of the gentleman. You can be 
 as courtly as you are true. But all the 
 world's a stage, and we are all acting parts; 
 following ideals, often set for us by acci- 
 dent. Your ideal has been the man of rude 
 strength, honest but impatient of conven- 
 tionalities." 
 
 "How did you know that?" he asked 
 quickly. 
 
 " Your every movement shows it. You 
 are a conscientious man, trying to do what 
 is right and worthy. You could not go so 
 
A MASTERFUL MAK 129 
 
 far wrong if you had not established for 
 yourself an ideal of unhewn granite." 
 
 " It is true. The first term I taught I 
 overheard one of my teachers say of me in 
 awe-struck tones, ' He is such a masterful 
 man.' She meant it for admiration, and it 
 flattered me; it seemed to point out the path 
 I ought to follow, the only path I could fol- 
 low very far. Since then I have tried to be 
 a masterful man." 
 
 " If she had said, as she might just as 
 well have said, ' He is such a thoughtful, 
 considerate man,' and you had tried to live 
 up to that ideal, what a difference it would 
 have made." 
 
 " I wish she had said that." 
 
 " I say that; I say it now; all your talk 
 to-night shows it. Now let us have a new 
 ideal, no less the man, but more the gen- 
 tleman." 
 
130 A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 " Will you help me?" 
 
 " With all my heart. You shall give a 
 first manifestation by offering to walk home 
 with me, for it is late." 
 VII 
 
 It was at the close of the first day of the 
 spring term, and the Lincoln school teach- 
 ers were waiting for the city teachers meet- 
 ing, to be held in their building at half- 
 past four. 
 
 Miss Avery had " returned to her room. 
 She had succumbed to typhoid fever, but 
 the siege had been light, and she had not 
 hastened to resumed her work, so she looked 
 rosier and happier than her fellow teachers 
 had ever before seen her. 
 
 "It is so good to be back," she said. 
 " I have thought of those scholars ever 
 since I left them, and it is such a delight 
 to be with them again. They have done so 
 
A MASTERFUL MAST 131 
 
 -well, too. Miss May must be a fine teacher." 
 " The best of it," said the first assistant, 
 ** is the way she has kept the room loyal to 
 you. The first day she came she told the 
 scholars that boys and girls did not realize 
 how much of herself a teacher gave them; 
 that you had literally worn yourself out for 
 them, and that perhaps they had uninten- 
 tionally made it harder for you by being 
 thoughtless. ' Now,' she said, ' we all want 
 Miss Avery to get well as soon as possible, 
 don't we ? ' And indeed they all did, the 
 way she put it. ' Well,' she said, * every 
 -one of you can help her get well. Her 
 thoughts will be here; she will want to 
 know just how every one of you is getting 
 'On; I shall go up to see her every week, and 
 tell her about you. Now, if she hears that 
 John Dole has really mastered division of 
 fractions, that Mary Pratt's penmanship is 
 
132 A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 becoming like copperplate, that Fanny 
 Rowe put on the blackboard the finest map- 
 of New York the room has ever seen there;, 
 and, best of all, that you children have 
 been so anxious to have her get well and 
 not worry that you have given me no trouble 
 at all, but just helped me make her proud 
 of the room, why fever won't get any hold 
 of her, and thoughts of school will be a 
 constant delight. Then how proud you will 
 be when she comes back.' 
 
 " That talk just took with the scholars- 
 It was sound sense, put to them as if Miss 
 May and they were partners in helping out. 
 Miss Avery. Really the results have been 
 surprising." 
 
 " Miss May did come every week," said 
 Miss Avery, " and she told the little things; 
 that made all that had happened real, almost 
 
A MASTERFUL MAN 133 
 
 as if I had been here myself. I wonder 
 who she is." 
 
 " Nobody seems to know," said the first 
 -assistant. " She boards at the Goddards, 
 but she is always away Saturday and Sun- 
 day, and nobody sees her much outside of 
 school. She has certainly earned a perma- 
 nent appointment, and I hope she gets it." 
 
 " She's been awfully good to me," said 
 Miss Avery, tears in her eyes; " but then, 
 so has everybody. Why, girls, you haven't 
 any idea what Mr. Kollins is unless you are 
 sick. He has come to the house two or 
 three times a week; when I was too ill to 
 see him he brought the most delicious 
 oranges; and after I began to sit up he 
 would come and chat for an hour, telling 
 me all about the school, and especially 
 about my own boys and girls." 
 
134 A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 "Ahem!" coughed Miss Lewis signifi- 
 cantly; " apparently something doing." 
 
 " Xot in the least," said Miss A very 
 earnestly; " just the opposite; like a com- 
 rade, you know, as if we were partners, as 
 if the school were something that belonged 
 to us both together and which I had a right 
 to know about. When I got stronger he 
 almost always brought with him one of my 
 boys or one of my girls, so as to give me the 
 small gossip, he said, that he couldn't pick 
 up. To think that a man so cross in school 
 is so thoughtful and considerate when you, 
 are sick." 
 
 " But he isn't cross in school any more,'* 
 said Miss Lewis; " you can't imagine how 
 he has changed. He always bows and says 
 some nice little thing when he passes us,, 
 and that harsh voice is all gone." 
 
 " He has made life different for all of 
 
A MASTERFUL MAK 135 
 
 us," said the first assistant. " His eyes 
 shine, as if he were happy all the time. 
 One would think he had just fallen in love." 
 
 " So he has!" 
 
 Everybody turned to look at Miss Ferret, 
 who had been standing on the outside of the 
 circle and listening with a superior smile, 
 and who now spoke for the first time. 
 
 " With whom ? " Three or four spoke 
 together. 
 
 " With Miss May." 
 
 " Nonsense," said the first assistant. 
 " He was never with her; he was in her 
 room less than in any other in the building." 
 
 " You don't suppose they were silly enough 
 to spoon before the school," said Miss Ferret. 
 
 " Where did they, then? He certainly 
 has not called on her at the Goddards'." 
 
 "No," said Miss Ferret, sagaciously; 
 " they haven't been advertising their love- 
 
136 A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 making. But they have made it all the 
 term." 
 
 " Where?" 
 
 " At Ipswich." 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 " I have a cousin who is a dressmaker 
 there and does work for Mrs. Parkhurst, 
 the minister's wife. Miss May stays there 
 most every week from Friday night to Mon- 
 day morning." 
 
 " Well?" 
 
 " Why, after my cousin had told me this 
 I noticed that Mr. Rollins was away a good 
 deal over Sunday, and I began to put two 
 and two together. Finally I spent Sunday 
 in Ipswich myself, and sure enough, into 
 church came Mr. Rollins and Miss May to- 
 gether as close as two peas in a pod. Then 
 I found out he was there most as often as 
 
A MASTERFUL MAtf 137 
 
 she was. And the next day after the term 
 closed she wore a diamond ring." 
 
 " How you do find out things ! " the others 
 cried admiringly. 
 
 " Well it is a good match," said the first 
 assistant, " and Pm glad of it. Miss May 
 is a dainty little body, just right for a man 
 so big and burly and bungling, and yet so 
 strong and tender. And she has improved 
 him a lot already, if it really is her doing." 
 
 " It certainly is," said Miss Ferret. 
 " 'Sh! here comes Mr. Rollins." 
 
 " Well, Miss Avery, how did the first 
 day go ? " he asked cheerily, nodding pleas- 
 antly to the others, and taking her hand. 
 
 " Delightfully," she cried. " I can 
 never tell how much I owe to you and to 
 Miss May." 
 
 " I am glad you couple our names," he 
 said with serious happiness. " She author- 
 
138 A MASTERFUL MAN 
 
 izes me to tell you that in June our names 
 are to become the same." 
 
 " I am so glad," cried Miss Avery; " it 
 was a blessed day when she took my place." 
 
 " It was a blessed day," said Mr. Rollins, 
 with a simple reverence that brought tears 
 even to the eyes of Miss Ferret. 
 
 Years after that astute observer remarked: 
 " Whenever Mr. Rollins speaks of his wife 
 his tone somehow makes you think he is 
 mentally lifting his hat." 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 I 
 
 " Is this Mr. Appleton ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir; take a seat." 
 
 " My name is Kalph Armstrong." 
 
 " Late of Boylford college ? " 
 
 " Yes." With an air of surprise. 
 
 " I am glad to see you, Mr. Armstrong; 
 I thought you were entirely right in that 
 matter." 
 
 " Then you knew about it?" In still 
 greater surprise. 
 
 " yes; it is part of our work here to 
 know what is going on in educational insti- 
 tutions, especially where there are contro- 
 versies. These often lead to vacancies we 
 (141) 
 
142 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 have to fill, and to pick the right man we 
 have to know the circumstances. Bring me 
 what we have about Boylford," Mr. Apple- 
 ton said to an assistant. 
 
 A half dozen envelopes were handed to 
 him, most of them containing catalogues, 
 but one of them marked " President 
 Armstrong's resignation ". As Mr. Apple- 
 ton opened this and took out a handful 
 of newspaper slips, Mr. Armstrong was 
 amazed; here was a fuller history of the 
 affair than he had kept himself. He color- 
 ed as he recognized some pictures from the 
 Chicago Chromeyellow, one of them a sup- 
 posed likeness of himself. Mr. Appleton 
 ran over them hastily. 
 
 " Yes," he said with conviction, " I re- 
 member feeling assured at the time you 
 took the only step open to an honorable man. 
 Whether you were right to make an issue 
 
OST A PEDESTAL 143 
 
 until you were sure of the majority of your 
 trustees might of course be a question; but 
 having made the issue you could not remain 
 unless you were sustained." 
 
 " I had the promise of the support of 
 four-fifths of my trustees," said Mr. Arm- 
 strong; " it was a case where the chief past 
 and prospective donor to the college unex- 
 pectedly interfered, and his word was law." 
 
 " Then of course you had to resign, and 
 you were well out of it. That was eighteen 
 months ago; what have you been doing 
 since?" 
 
 " Lounging about Europe, studying some, 
 observing a good deal, getting two or three 
 languages so that they signify something to 
 the ear, making a historical background for 
 my reading." 
 
 " Eeady for work again ? " 
 
 Mr. Armstrong hesitated ; he had not in- 
 
144 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 tended to register in this teachers agency; 
 he had heard about it, and had dropped in 
 patronizingly to see what it was like. It 
 did not resemble an intelligence office so 
 much as he had supposed. Finally he re- 
 plied, " I presume so, in September." 
 
 " You couldn't take a place right off ? " 
 
 " When ? " 
 
 " Next Monday morning." 
 
 " On forty hours notice ? " 
 
 " Why not? You have been a high 
 school principal,. I believe ? " 
 
 Mr. Armstrong's face softened, and 
 there was a tender light in his eyes as he 
 said, " The years I remember most happily 
 are those I spent as principal of the high 
 school at Bethel. What a delight it is to 
 deal with young people just passing into 
 manhood and womanhood. There was 
 nothing my senior class would not do for 
 
Q]ST A PEDESTAL 145 
 
 me; there was not much I hesitated to do 
 for them. It looked like promotion to be- 
 come college professor and college president, 
 but I have often thought I might better 
 have staid in Bethel." 
 
 " You are just the man I want. Princi- 
 pal Bruce of Winchendon has been sudden- 
 ly called away, and I am instructed to get a 
 successor there Monday morning without 
 fail." 
 
 " How did Mr. Bruce happen to go 
 away ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Judge Fellows tele- 
 phoned me that he had gone, and that only 
 a superior man could fill his place." 
 
 " Did you know Mr. Bruce ? " 
 
 " No; he was from the west, I think; I 
 never heard of him till I learned of his ap- 
 pointment there." 
 
 " You think there has been no contro- 
 
146 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 versy there ? I am not anxious for any 
 more quarrelling." 
 
 " So far as I know everything has been 
 smooth ; in fact Judge Fellows's one anxiety 
 seemed to be sure of some one who could 
 fill Mr. Bruce's place without the school's 
 feeling the loss." 
 
 " What will be the salary ? " 
 
 " That is left entirely to me. I should 
 think a fair compromise between what they 
 have been accustomed to pay and what you 
 ought to command would be two hundred 
 dollars for the month. I will guarantee you 
 that amount." 
 
 Mr. Armstrong was tempted; he had 
 spent more at the last in Europe than he 
 had intended, and this two hundred would 
 be a help. 
 
 " You are summary in your way of doing 
 business," he said with a smile. " Half an 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 147 
 
 hour ago you did not know I existed, yet 
 now you offer me a place to begin day after 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " I don't send out strangers like that," 
 said Mr. Appleton. " Half an hour ago I 
 did not know whether you were still living, 
 but I knew a good deal about you, and 
 should have felt that if you were still liv- 
 ing you would be a good man for any place. 
 This personal interview more than confirms 
 my good impressions. I shall send you to 
 Winchendon with no misgivings." 
 
 " I will go," said Mr. Armstrong, " and 
 try to justify your impressions. You want 
 me to fill out some blank, I suppose ? " 
 
 " I should like to have you do so, to keep 
 our records complete, but put it in your 
 pocket; you have only time to catch the 
 train. See Judge Fellows to-night, so that 
 
148 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 his mind will be at rest; and he can give 
 you pointers to think of over Sunday." 
 
 II 
 
 Before the first day was over the Win- 
 chendon school knew that no mistake had 
 been made in securing Principal Armstrong. 
 He was wholly unlike Mr. Bruce in manner 
 and in method, but the expert hand was 
 felt before he had finished the opening ex- 
 ercises, and the few faint attempts at in- 
 subordination were dealt with so summarily 
 that there was no temptation to repeat them. 
 When he called Dick Jones to him at recess 
 to inquire as to some mischief, and Jones 
 began to beat about the bush, he looked 
 him straight in the eye and said: " You 
 know, Jones, I always believe absolutely 
 what a boy tells me; it would be intoler- 
 able to deal with boys I could not trust." 
 Jones stammered a little, floundered about 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 149 
 
 some, but finally to his own surprise told 
 the matter just as it had occurred. This was 
 talked about, and the leading boys decided 
 it was best to deal with Mr. Armstrong 
 squarely. He dealt squarely with them. 
 He always heard a boy clear through, and 
 showed that he considered fairly the boy's 
 point of view. Before the second day was 
 done the boys among themselves had em- 
 phatically pronounced Mr. Armstrong all 
 right. 
 
 The question of mastery settled, the 
 school had leisure to observe his personal- 
 ity. It was easy to see that he was of a 
 much higher type of man than Mr. Bruce. 
 It would never occur to the pupils to be 
 familiar with him, as they often were with 
 Mr. Bruce, but they learned to come to 
 him freely, and found that he never turned 
 them away impatiently. Even to a small 
 
150 OK A PEDESTAL 
 
 child he would listen deferentially, advising 
 her in her little troubles as gravely and con- 
 siderately as though she were of his own 
 age. But there was something lifting about 
 him. He seemed wiser and more cultured 
 and broader-minded than the other men 
 they had known. Some of the more 
 thoughtful scholars studied him to see what 
 it was that gave this impression and won- 
 dered whether they could attain it. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The third day he was there he had made 
 a purchase in Tucker's grocery and was 
 turning away, when Alice Manchester, a 
 little girl in the fifth grade, who was in 
 another part of the store and wanted to 
 speak to him, ran toward him. To reach 
 him she ran over a trap-door opening down- 
 ward to the cellar, which by the careless- 
 ness of an errand-boy had been insufficient- 
 
Otf A PEDESTAL 151 
 
 ly fastened below. Just as she called Mr. 
 Armstrong's name he saw the door open 
 and the child fall screaming through. He 
 dropped himself down, hanging by his 
 hands to the floor on the side farthest from 
 where she fell, and asked: "Shall I hit 
 you if I drop ? " 
 
 A faint voice came out of the darkness : 
 
 "No; it is about four feet." 
 
 The effort exhausted her; when he 
 reached her she had fainted. He called 
 up for some one to run for the nearest phy- 
 sician, satisfied himself no limb was broken, 
 and gathering her up tenderly in his arms 
 groped his way to the stairs, the door at the 
 head of which was by this time opened. 
 He took her to the office, where fortunately 
 there was a couch, Mr. Tucker liking to 
 take a noonday nap. He had hardly laid 
 the poor child down, when in came Dr. 
 
152 OK A PEDESTAL 
 
 Lyndon, a woman physician whose office 
 was near by. As she entered, he was about 
 to withdraw with the other men, but she 
 stopped him. " You are Mr. Armstrong, 
 I believe ? Please stay; I may need you." 
 
 He turned his head as she loosened the 
 child's clothing and examined the extent of 
 the injury. " Fortunately she did not fall 
 quite on the end of her spine," Dr. Lyndon 
 said at length, " but she is terribly bruised, 
 and there may be serious internal injuries. 
 Will you ring for an ambulance, please ? " 
 
 When the ambulance came and the office 
 door was opened, Mr. Tucker's anxious face 
 appeared. " Is she seriously hurt ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 Dr. Lyndon addressed Mr. Armstrong. 
 " It will probably cost this man from two 
 to ten thousand dollars," she said disdain- 
 fully. 
 
OK A PEDESTAL 153 
 
 " You are unjust to me," cried Mr. 
 Tucker; " I would rather give every dollar 
 1 have in the world than have her perma- 
 nently crippled." 
 
 There was pain as well as indignation in 
 his voice. Dr. Lyndon turned to him and 
 offered him her hand. " I have done you 
 wrong," she said; " nothing shall be spared 
 to restore the child to soundness and 
 health." 
 
 She would have directed Mr. Armstrong 
 how to carry the child, but he was already 
 lifting her with a deft tenderness that sur- 
 prised the physician. Both the principal 
 and the physician rode in the ambulance to 
 Alice's home, and both staid there till the 
 little one was restored to consciousness. 
 To the surprise of both, when Alice opened 
 her eyes it was to Mr. Armstrong she turned 
 first, and she held out her little hand to 
 
154 CW A PEDESTAL 
 
 him. " It was awful good of you to drop 
 down after me," she said. 
 
 His eyes were moist as he bent over and 
 kissed her, almost bashfully, and he came 
 again that evening. He was able to see 
 her, and he talked with her, telling her 
 simple stories in his grave way, and discus- 
 sing with her points that especially inter- 
 ested her. " You make me forget my 
 pain," the child said, and the mother 
 begged him to come again the next evening. 
 The result was that he came every evening, 
 and grew to look forward to the hour with 
 as much anticipation as the child. They 
 had strange conversations, for she was a 
 thoughtful child and he talked with her as 
 with an equal, giving her freely his best 
 thought and his fullest experience in all 
 that interested her. 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 155 
 
 IV 
 
 The most fascinating topic to her had 
 proved to be his travels, and finally she had 
 insisted that he should begin with the 
 steamer in New York harbor and tell her 
 consecutively about his entire trip. 
 
 One evening Dr. Lyndon had come to 
 call upon her, and hearing their conversa- 
 tion sat down unannounced Jn the adjoin- 
 ing room and listened. 
 
 " What time did you get to Rotterdam ? " 
 asked Alice. Then she laughed merrily. 
 " Honest," she said, " I can't help feeling 
 just as if I were swearing to say that 
 name." 
 
 " If it were swearing you would do lots 
 of it in Holland," said Mr. Armstrong, 
 " with your Rotterdam and Amsterdam and 
 Zaandam. It was after dark when the train 
 got there. I went to a hotel right on th& 
 
156 Otf A PEDESTAL 
 
 dock, looking out on the water; and after 
 dinner I went out to see the town. I had 
 a map in my pocket, but in a new place I 
 like just to wander, without knowing where 
 I am going; one often runs across things 
 one would not see if one had planned what 
 to look for. 
 
 " I followed the street where the shop- 
 windows were most brilliant, and when I 
 had passed beyond the shops and the street 
 was less interesting, I turned to the left, 
 intending to go a block and then return by 
 a parallel street. I walked quite a distance, 
 far enough to be reaching the brilliantly 
 lighted part of the city again, but I seemed 
 to be getting farther into the suburbs. I 
 took out my map, but the street lamps were 
 very high and did not give light enough for 
 me to read the names of the streets. 
 
 " I never ask to be directed if I can help 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 157 
 
 it, but it was manifest I must ask now, so 
 when a man came along I inquired how to 
 get to the Hotel Des Bains. ' I am going 
 within sight of it,' he said politely, ' and 
 shall be glad to show you.' To my sur- 
 prise he took a direction which seemed to 
 me away from the hotel. I did not express 
 any doubt of him, but I wondered, and as 
 we went farther and farther and still 
 saw nothing to indicate approach to the 
 centre of the town I grew suspicious. The 
 street was along the bank of a canal, and I 
 managed to keep him on the water side ; I 
 reckoned as I measured myself with him 
 that if he attempted to rob me I could hold 
 my own. Finally just as I was about to say 
 this thing had gone far enough and I did 
 not care to be led to greater distance, we 
 made a sudden turn and he pointed out the 
 hotel to me. When I got to my room and 
 
158 OK A PEDESTAL 
 
 examined the map, I found that instead of 
 taking a parallel street I had taken one al- 
 most at right angles, and had followed it 
 way to the southwestern part of the city." 
 
 " When you though he was leading you 
 wrong were you scared ? " asked Alice. 
 
 " That depends upon what you mean by 
 scared," replied Mr. Armstrong. 
 
 " What do you mean by scared ? " asked 
 Alice. 
 
 " I should say that to be scared is to lose 
 one's presence of mind. When a horse is 
 scared he runs away madly, which is a fool- 
 ish thing to do. People who are scared 
 usually do silly things. In this case the 
 man seemed to be going out of his way -to 
 take me out of my way, and I could think 
 of no reason unless he wanted to rob me. 
 So I was apprehensive and alert, but I don't 
 think I was scared, I was cool and more 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 159 
 
 than usually master of myself, only I was 
 on the lookout for anything that might 
 happen,' 
 
 " Were you ever scared ? " 
 
 " I don't think I ever lost my presence of 
 mind." 
 
 " Did your presence of mind ever prompt 
 you to absence of body ? " persisted Alice, 
 roguishly. 
 
 " Well, of all the impertinence," cried 
 Mr. Armstrong, playfully boxing her ears; 
 " what right has a girl ten years old to be 
 making saucy epigrams ? " 
 
 " But did you ever run away ? " the child 
 still urged. 
 
 It was the especial charm of these con- 
 versations to Alice that she could talk so 
 fearlessly to this grave, almost austere man, 
 whom most of the children looked upon 
 with awe ; he and she were boon compan- 
 
160 <XNT A PEDESTAL 
 
 ions. Perhaps she divined that to a man 
 with his broad shoulders, quick motions, and 
 the easy physical grace of the trained ath- 
 lete, cowardice was not a sensitive subject. 
 
 He went on to answer her question 
 thoughtfully. " I don't know that I ever 
 did run away," he said, " but there are 
 many circumstances under which that 
 would be the wisest thing to do, and if it 
 seemed the wisest thing I should do it. 
 Wait; I do remember running away once." 
 
 " Tell me about it," cried Alice, clap- 
 ping her hands. 
 
 " When I was six or seven years old I 
 spent a week at Milford, New Hampshire, 
 visiting an aunt there. Most of the time I 
 was with a cropped-headed boy a year or 
 two older and several times as knowing. 
 We had been wading in the shallows of the 
 river one afternoon and were on our way 
 
0^ A PEDESTAL 161 
 
 home when a wagon passed us in which were 
 two men. To my astonishment my com- 
 panion picked up a stone and threw it after 
 the wagon, hitting one of the men; and to 
 my consternation this man stopped the 
 wagon and came running toward us with a 
 horsewhip. There did not seem any ques- 
 tion what it was wise for me to do then, 
 and I started to run. But the other boy 
 called out disdainfully, ' What are you run- 
 ning for ? Stay here and face him down.' 
 I turned around, thinking I must stand by 
 my companion, silly as he was; but sure 
 enough that little scamp stood there in the 
 road, another stone in his hand, and threat- 
 ened if I remember aright to gouge out the 
 man's eyes if he came near. He was so 
 determined and so fearless that finally the 
 man turned around and went back to his 
 wagon, and did not heed the second stone 
 
162 OK A PEDESTAL 
 
 that my companion threw at him as he drove 
 away. My companion called me a coward 
 to start to run; do you think I was ? " 
 
 " Not to stay there, a little boy, when a 
 great big man was coming after you with a 
 horsewhip ? No, I think you ought to run 
 away." 
 
 " But as it turned out, there was no 
 danger." 
 
 " But suppose the man hadn't been afraid 
 of the cropped-headed boy's second stone ? " 
 
 " That's just it; most men who came 
 back with the horsewhip would have used 
 it, so my action was wise under the condi- 
 tions. But I have nothing of the bravado 
 of that cropped-headed boy. Danger does 
 not necessarily prevent my doing a thing, 
 but before doing it I try to measure the 
 danger there is in it." 
 
 " Have you ever been in real danger ? " 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 163 
 
 "Yes; I was once where the chances 
 were very much against my getting out 
 .alive." 
 
 " Tell me about it." 
 
 " This was in Germany. I had planned 
 to spend the night at a hotel near a water- 
 fall and had sent my baggage ahead. I 
 came up the lake on the steamer just at 
 dusk, and got off alone where the stream 
 from the waterfall flowed into the lake. I 
 followed the stream up and sat an hour or 
 more enjoying the cascade. When I was 
 ready to go to the hotel I could not find the 
 path, it was so dark. After hunting awhile 
 in vain, I looked at the walls of the ravine. 
 The rock was of soft shale that could be 
 picked apart, and I decided I could climb 
 up. I got up half way easily enough, but 
 the rock grew harder and I saw it was 
 doubtful whether I could reach the top. 
 
164 OK A PEDESTAL 
 
 It was impossible to climb back down; I 
 had climbed up by picking out pieces of 
 shale with my fingers and hanging by my 
 fingers and toes; one can go up that way, 
 but not down. So the question was whether 
 to persist in what seemed the hopeless at- 
 tempt to get to the top, or to drop before 
 going higher, and while I could protect 
 myself as much as possible by choosing my 
 time to fall." 
 
 " How awful it must have been," shud- 
 dered Alice, grasping his hand in both of 
 hers. 
 
 " Finally I decided that to fall so far 
 would probably be fatal, and certainly would 
 break one or more limbs, with which I 
 should have to lie till morning, so that I 
 might as well go on and take what little 
 chance there was. And I actually did reach 
 
ON" A PEDESTAL 165 
 
 the top, though not till long after mid- 
 night." 
 
 " Clinging by your fingers and toes ? " 
 
 " Yes, with my elbows bent in tense rig- 
 idity. For an hour after I decided to go 
 ahead it seemed hopeless, and I was only 
 doggedly persistent. Then I began to think 
 1 might possibly reach the top; presently I 
 could see the top, and then I knew I still 
 had strength to get there. It is a great 
 moment, that in which you are for the first 
 time sure you shall succeed. I have had it 
 several times in my life." 
 
 " Tell me about them." 
 
 " Why, onge, when I was a sophomore 
 in college, as we came out of breakfast to 
 go to chapel we saw hanging between the 
 towers of the library a blue flag with the 
 number of the freshman class over a white 
 with the number of our class. I let 
 
166 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 the rest go into chapel, and then I took off 
 my shoes and climbed the library wall by 
 the lightning rod, and when the freshmen 
 came out of chapel they saw the flags hang- 
 ing out of my room, reversed. I had never 
 climbed a lightning rod before, and was not 
 sure I could do it, but when I reached the 
 cornice and saw how the rod went around 
 it I knew the flags were mine." 
 
 " How brave you must be." 
 
 " That is one kind of courage; it isn't a 
 bit that of the cropped-headed boy. It 
 isn't equal to the courage you showed when 
 you told me how far I had to drop." 
 
 " Courage ? Me ? Why, I am the big- 
 gest coward in the world. I couldn't climb 
 into a grocery wagon." 
 
 " Nevertheless, when you were on the 
 point of fainting away with pain you 
 thought of me instead of yourself; there 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 167 
 
 is no greater courage than that. You have 
 the possibilities of magnificent woman- 
 hood." 
 
 " Do you really think so ? " asked the 
 child, wistfully; " I should so like to believe 
 it. You remember telling me once about 
 the woman of whom it was said that to 
 know her was a liberal education. I should 
 like to be like that. Of course I couldn't 
 be a a great woman, like her, but I should 
 like to be that kind of a woman, so true 
 and helpful that those about me would 
 want to do their best. It seems so much 
 more to inspire others to do things than to 
 do them one's self." 
 
 " You are an inspiration already, my 
 child," said Mr. Armstrong gravely. " You 
 have made my life very different to me. I 
 was not happy or hopeful when I began to 
 come here evenings, but now I am both." 
 
168 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 " Eeally ? " cried Alice, pressing his 
 hand to her lips; " it does not seem possi- 
 ble; but how happy you make me." 
 V 
 
 At this point Dr. Lyndon appeared. " I 
 have been eavesdropping," she said, " but 
 I felt sure you would not object. It helps 
 me to know there are such men, and girls 
 who will be such women. No, don't go, 
 Mr. Armstrong. I have only two or three 
 inquiries to make and a direction or two to 
 give, and then I will go with you. Our lit- 
 tle patient is getting on famously ; she will 
 not have a trace left of her accident." 
 
 " How that child loves you," remarked 
 Dr. Lyndoa, almost enviously, as they 
 walked out of the house together. 
 
 " Love seems worth while to you, doesn't 
 it ? " replied Mr. Armstrong. 
 
 " It seems about the only thing on earth 
 
OX A PEDESTAL 169 
 
 worth while," said Dr. Lyndon; " all the 
 rest is subsidiary to it." 
 
 " Yet I am thirty-five years old, and it is 
 the first time that I ever experienced it." 
 " How can that be possible ? " 
 " Easily. I lost my parents before I was 
 old enough to know them. I was brought 
 up by a second cousin, who took me from 
 a sense of duty you know what that 
 means. From eight to sixteen I was bound 
 out to a Vermont farmer who saw in me as 
 he saw in his hired men, his cattle, his wife, 
 and himself, only something out of which 
 the utmost possible amount of work must 
 be wrong." 
 
 " How did you get your education ? " 
 " This man leased the farm of the widow 
 of a physician, some of whose miscellane- 
 ous books were left on the top shelves of 
 closets. I devoured them. I remember 
 
170 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 carrying around pocket editions of Pope's 
 Iliad and an abridged Blair's Ehetoric, and 
 reading them while the oxen rested at plow- 
 ing. 
 
 " I was allowed to go to school winters 
 and I learned rapidly. I completed Eobin- 
 son's Elementary algebra in a term. Schools 
 were not graded then, and one who could 
 go fast had the opportunity. 
 
 " When my time on the farm was up I 
 worked in a blacksmith's shop, earned 
 wages enough to spend a year in a good 
 academy, and got into college as young as 
 most boys. I worked my way through by 
 tutoring and teaching." 
 
 " And in all this time you made no 
 friends ? " 
 
 " yes, I have always found people 
 friendly to me; some people have done 
 a great deal for me. But such love as lights 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 171 
 
 up little Alice's eyes when I come I have 
 never awakened in any eyes before. And 
 yet," he added, hesitatingly, " I was once 
 engaged to be married." 
 
 " Tell me about it," said Dr. Lyndon. 
 She asked it deliberately, though she knew 
 she was on ground where angels fear to 
 tread. 
 
 " I never have told anybody," he said 
 slowly, " and yet I feel inclined to tell you. 
 I don't know why I am in the mood to talk 
 about myself to-night, but I am going to 
 tell you about her; I should like to get the 
 woman's point of view." 
 
 They had reached Dr. Lyndon's resi- 
 dence, a little house she had recently pur- 
 chased, with a considerable front yard. 
 There was a large, low tree, under which 
 there was a bench, and on this Dr. Lyndon. 
 
172 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 and Mr. Armstrong seated themselves in 
 the soft June moonlight. 
 
 " You will easily see that in school and 
 college I had no time for social diversion, 
 even if I had had clothes or manners or 
 introduction. In five years I hardly varied 
 from bed at ten, up at five, and every hour 
 of the seventeen used to what seemed to be 
 the best possible advantage. 
 
 " The first term I was a principal, by an 
 unexpected change of teachers I was obliged 
 to take the chemistry. I knew little about 
 it; the few honors I had won in college 
 had been in mathematics and language. 
 But when I began really to study chemistry 
 it fascinated me. My boys and girls worked 
 with me after school and on Saturdays, 
 and I gave it nearly all my waking hours. 
 
 " I had not found a satisfactory book of 
 experiments, and I compiled one from our 
 
OK A PEDESTAL 173 
 
 work in the class. It was published, and 
 it pleased some teachers. 
 
 " One day a man walked into school, and 
 staid all the afternoon, going into my classes 
 and even remaining to see our work after 
 hours. When the children had gone home, 
 at nearly six o'clock, he told me he was 
 president of Boylford college, and invited 
 me to become professor of chemistry there. 
 
 " 1 found the equipment there wholly in- 
 adequate, but I interested the students and 
 finally got the attention of Mr. Bolyford, 
 after whom the college was named, and 
 who provided most of the funds. He used 
 to drop into recitations occasionally, and 
 one day he said, ' Armstrong, I am going to 
 give you a hundred thousand dollars for a 
 laboratory.' He did it, and he practically 
 left everything to me ; so I was a busy man. 
 
 " Still there were social obligations I 
 
174 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 could not escape. All the professors were 
 expected to attend certain functions, and 
 when I had to go I went and did the best 
 I could. 
 
 " There was one house to which I grew 
 rather to like to go. Mrs. Andrews had a 
 way of making one feel whenever he entered 
 that he was just the one man she had want- 
 ed to have come in. Awkward and clumsy 
 as I was, she made me feel at home and at 
 my ease. I even learned to drop in to meals 
 uninvited, and found myself always more 
 than welcome. 
 
 " When the president died suddenly in 
 the middle of the year I was elected in his 
 place. It was an unreasonable choice, of 
 course, but Mr. Boylford had taken a^fancy 
 to me, he wanted me, and his word was law. 
 
 " If I had been welcome at the Andrews' 
 before I was indispensable now. There 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 175 
 
 was something to bring me there nearly 
 every day, a place was always left for me at 
 the table, I was included in all family 
 parties. 
 
 " When we went anywhere, Mrs. An- 
 drews naturally took her husband's arm, 
 and their daughter Cora took mine. I have 
 not mentioned her before, and she was no 
 more prominent in my thoughts. She was 
 a part of the family, as her father was, but 
 such personal interest as I had was in Mrs. 
 Andrews, whom I considered a charming 
 woman, and to whom I felt grateful. 
 
 " One day the wife of an older professor 
 asked me, it seemed with a touch of malice, 
 ' When does it come off ? ' 
 
 " ' What?' 
 
 " ' Your marriage with Cora Andrews.' 
 
 " ' Why should you think it is coming 
 off?' 
 
176 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 " ' I heard Mrs. Andrews say the date 
 was not yet fixed.' 
 
 " * Then I can't name it.' 
 
 " I laughed lightly as I turned away, de- 
 termined she should discover nothing to 
 gratify her curiosity; but naturally it set 
 me thinking. 
 
 " I had never looked upon myself as a 
 marriageable man. Until I became presi- 
 dent there had been no possibility of it, 
 and since then I had been so occupied with 
 other things that the matter had not oc- 
 curred to me. But I was now a fairly eligi- 
 ble husband for a girl who, like Miss An- 
 drews, would have plenty of money of her 
 own, and whose mother had always preferred 
 the college set. 
 
 " Was the mother really looking upon me 
 as a prospective son-in-law ? That would 
 account for her interest in me; for the 
 
ON" A PEDESTAL 177 
 
 thousand little hints she had given me so 
 tactfully, as well as for the hospitality she 
 had lavished on me. Yes, that was possi- 
 ble; I felt sure she would not object. 
 
 " But Cora, did she expect it ? There 
 had never been a word or a hint of affection 
 between us. We had been companions be- 
 cause we had been thrown together, but I 
 had never felt particular interest in her, 
 nor had she manifested any in me. And 
 yet if her mother expected it, she must 
 know of it; probably was not averse to it. 
 Perhaps she even . To be sure there was 
 nothing to show it, but as a modest girl she 
 would in any event wait for me to take the 
 initiative. 
 
 " Suppose both did want it, did I want 
 it ? I shouldn't have known that I did, 
 but when the possibility presented itself 
 there was much that appealed to me. I 
 
178 OK A PEDESTAL 
 
 realized that one side of my nature was un- 
 developed; my intellect had been exercised 
 and sharpened at the expense of my heart. I 
 could afford to relax the culture of the one, 
 and yield to the demands of the other. 
 
 " And if I were to marry, how could I 
 hope to be more fortunate ? If I had not 
 seen superlative excellencies in Cora, at 
 least I had discovered no faults, and very like- 
 ly I should find her virtues had been merely 
 overlooked. Her father I had always met 
 pleasantly enough, and her mother was the 
 best friend I had ever had. Yes, if Cora's 
 hand was to be had for the asking, it would 
 be more than I had hoped for myself. 
 
 " You wonder at the crudeness of all this 
 calculation, but remember I had never had 
 time for love-dreams. The ordinary boy of 
 fourteen is more experienced in the emo- 
 tions of the heart than I was. 
 
OK A PEDESTAL 179 
 
 " The more I thought of it, the more de- 
 sirable it seemed, and the more I determined 
 to ascertain at once whether I could depend 
 on the information I had received. 
 
 " That night the family and I went for a 
 boat-ride on the lake. I looked at them 
 from the new view-point, and concluded 
 the chance was worth the attempt. When 
 we reached home the father and mother 
 walked ahead as usual, and Cora and I fol- 
 lowed slowly in the winding path through 
 the grounds. Before we reached the house 
 I stopped her under a tree not unlike this 
 the night was not unlike this ; perhaps that 
 is what has so brought it back to me, and 
 I said: 
 
 " l Cora, I have been hoping something.' 
 
 " * What ? ' she asked. She did not meet 
 my eyes; I felt sure she knew what was 
 coming. 
 
180 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 " * That you will be my wife. Will you ? r 
 
 " 'Yes,' she said; and when I drew her to 
 me she dropped her head upon my shoulder. 
 
 " The parents were waiting inside, and 
 when I told them of our engagement Mr. 
 Andrews shook my hand warmly and Mrs. 
 Andrews kissed me. 
 
 " This was in October. The rest of the 
 year I was much at the house, and I grew 
 passionately in love with Cora. I presume 
 few young lovers are as foolishly fond as I 
 was ; I used even to write verses. My affec- 
 tions had lain fallow all these years, and 
 when the harvest came it was abundant. 
 Cora became my ideal woman ; all that I 
 could imagine of beauty and grace and 
 charm and virtue I hung upon her like gar- 
 ments upon a model. My inner thoughts, 
 my dearest desires, hopes I had hardly 
 whispered to myself, I loved to tell her. She 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 181 
 
 told me little in return, but I supposed her 
 life was the white sheet on which I was to 
 write. 
 
 " We were to be married in July, and to 
 sail for Europe. The last of June a crisis 
 came in the college. I expelled a senior for 
 unpardonable dissoluteness. He appealed 
 to the trustees. To my astonishment Mr. 
 Boylford turned against me; the fellow was 
 restored to college without even an apology. 
 
 " Of course I resigned, to take effect im- 
 mediately, and I hurried from the meeting 
 to the Andrews'. How glad I was in this 
 blighting of my career to have love to fall 
 back on. I knew Cora would fully justify 
 me, for she always agreed with me. In her 
 faithful arms I should forget how treacher- 
 ous is the favor of man. 
 
 " As I went up the path I caught a 
 glimpse of her white gown in the arbor. I 
 
182 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 tiptoed softly on the grass so as to surprise 
 her, as I dearly loved to do, and I came up- 
 on her before she heard me." 
 
 Mr. Armstrong paused; it was some time 
 before he went on, and his voice was almost 
 inaudible. 
 
 " I can hardly tell you what I saw. The- 
 expelled student was there, his arm around 
 her waist, his lips pressed to hers. 
 
 " ' Cora! ' I exclaimed. 
 
 " She turned upon me like a tigress. 
 
 " ' I am glad you found me,' she cried; 
 4 1 am sick and tired of this double, life. I 
 have honestly tried to gratify mamma's am- 
 bition, but I loved this man long before I 
 ever saw you, and you I detest, 1 abhor, I 
 hate. If you had not been blind as a bat, 
 stupid as an owl, you would have seen that 
 I never gave you a spontaneous caress or 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 183 
 
 word or look. I have simply endured you. 
 Thank God, it is over.' 
 
 " I was too astounded to speak. There 
 was a real woman there, after all ; not such 
 a woman as I had imagined, hut a woman 
 of much more character, in some respects 
 more admirable. There was no question 
 of her sincerity, or of the hopelessness not 
 only of reclaiming her if I had desired, but 
 of preventing her marriage to this worthless 
 fellow. I could only lift my hat and retire, 
 which I did without a word. 
 
 " I went to my study, packed my most 
 important books and papers, left written 
 directions for the rest, and took the next 
 train for New York. I' could not endure 
 to speak to a person. I sailed for Europe 
 by the first steamer, and I staid there until 
 I came here. Now you see what I meant 
 when I said I had never known love. If 
 
184 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 even a child like Alice had really loved me, 
 I should have known that Cora detested 
 me." 
 
 Dr. Lyndon was silent for a time. Then 
 she asked: 
 
 " Did Cora marry the student ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I have not heard a word 
 from Boylford from that day to this." 
 
 " You are implacable. Did not Mrs. 
 Andrews deserve better of you ? " 
 
 " I blame Mrs. Andrews far more than 
 her daughter; all the while that Cora was 
 protesting against enduring me, her mother 
 was assuring me how deep her daughter's 
 love was." 
 
 " What do you suppose Boylford thinks 
 of you ? " 
 
 "It is immaterial; Boylford is to me a 
 closed book." 
 
 " You do yourself injustice. You were 
 
OK A PEDESTAL 185 
 
 not at fault for anything that happened; 
 you have no right to allow yourself to be 
 misjudged. Didn't the matter get into the 
 newspapers ? " 
 
 " Yes; the school agency man at Ipswich 
 had an envelope full of clippings; he identi- 
 fied me by one of their horrible woodcuts; " 
 and Mr. Armstrong smiled grimly. 
 
 " When I got to Chicago I bought the 
 Tribune. It gave so much space to it that 
 I bought all the other morning journals. 
 The Chromeyellow gave it the first page. 
 Across the top in thick red letters four 
 inches tall, the article was headed ' DOUB- 
 LY DEFEATED '. Then below, in black 
 letters half as high, ' A College President 
 Loses his Position and his Bride '. Under 
 that, ' Young Blood Triumphs, and the 
 College Town Rejoices '. Then came, 
 
 " ' By telegraph to the Chromeyellow. 
 
186 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 " ( Yesterday Kalph Armstrong was the 
 most envied man in Kansas. He was presi- 
 dent of its most successful college, he was 
 to marry within a fortnight one of its love- 
 liest maidens, daughter of one of its wealthi- 
 est residents, and he was to sail immediately 
 for a luxurious wedding trip to Europe. 
 
 " ' To-day Ralph Armstrong is a home- 
 less, friendless wanderer. 
 
 "< What did it? 
 
 " ' Ralph Armstrong's insatiable revenge 
 against a lover whom he had already robbed 
 of his mistress.' And so on." 
 
 "And you made no effort to refute this ? " 
 
 " What would you have me do ? Emu- 
 late the man who puts in cards like this : 
 c The John Smith who was arrested last 
 night for drunkenness and beating his wife 
 is not the John Smith who is pastor of the 
 First Presbyterian church ? ' " 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 187 
 
 " No, but a plain statement of facts of 
 the case might be published, which would 
 leave the real truth on record." 
 
 " There is nothing published as to my re- 
 signation that is necessarily harmful to my 
 reputation. My motives are misrepresent- 
 ed, but people know how to make allowances 
 for that. Mr. Appleton, of Ipswich, who 
 had read the accounts in an unprejudiced 
 way, just to get at the facts, told me as his 
 first impression that he though I was in the 
 right. As to the engagement, of course I 
 could not say a word about that." 
 
 " What are your plans for next year ? " 
 
 " I have thought I would ask Mr. Apple- 
 ton to find me some place where I can teach 
 chemistry; I know I can do that work well." 
 
 " Why not go back to your own labora- 
 tory at Boylford ? " 
 
188 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 " Impossible. I gave up Boylford of my 
 own accord; it is a closed chapter." 
 
 " Wouldn't you go back to it if you were 
 invited ? " 
 
 " Not unless it was admitted that I was 
 right in expelling the boy." 
 
 " Why don't you find out what the feel- 
 ing is there ? " 
 
 " Why should I make inquiries ? I came 
 away; if they want me again they must 
 send for me." 
 
 " The trouble with you," said Dr. Lyn- 
 don impatiently, " is that you live on a ped- 
 estal. There you sit with your arms folded 
 like an Egyptian god, and if people want to 
 communicate with you they must come to 
 you. Why shouldn't you climb down off 
 your perch and look up other people ? 
 Everybody must make the advances to you, 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 189 
 
 so you are limited to those who happen to 
 take a fancy to make those advances." 
 
 She had not meant to speak at this time, 
 but now that she was started her vehemence 
 ran away with her, and she went on: " Out 
 of the five hundred children in school you 
 have formed an intimate friendship with 
 Alice Manchester. Why ? Because you 
 selected her? No; because she selected 
 you ; when she came out of her unconscious- 
 ness she showed recognition of you and you 
 responded. She is a lovely child, but if 
 she had not especially noticed you, she 
 would have been nothing to you. She 
 made the choice, not you. You would not 
 have a bowing acquaintance with me if I 
 had not forced myself upon you. Why did 
 you once become engaged to a girl you had 
 hardly observed ? Because some meddling 
 woman told you her mother was making the 
 
190 OST A PEDESTAL 
 
 match. Finding it was all arranged for 
 you, you obediently let yourself be led by 
 the nose into a halter prepared for you. 
 You are old enough and wise enough to 
 make your own choice of companions, but 
 you can't do it till you come down off your 
 pedestal and make advances, like other peo- 
 ple. You think it is pride that makes you 
 hold back; it isn't; it is bad manners. 
 People think you are haughty; I know bet- 
 ter; you are simply shy." 
 
 " You do not seem especially shy," re- 
 plied Mr. Armstrong, not without resent- 
 ment. 
 
 Tears came into Dr. Lyndon's eyes. " Do 
 you think I want to say these things ? " she 
 cried; " don't you suppose I know that it 
 will make you hate me ? But I can't sec 
 you wasting your great chances in life 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 191 
 
 through such a mistaken notion of dealing 
 with people." 
 
 " Faithful are the wounds of a friend," 
 replied Mr. Armstrong, offering his hand. 
 " I will think over what you have said; 
 I have no doubt there is a good deal of 
 truth in it; I know it was brave and kind 
 of you to say it. I cannot model myself on 
 anyone else. I know I am gnarled and 
 twisted and unformed, but I grew up in the 
 field, and I must remain what I was planted. 
 I may get a little pruning here, a little 
 grafting there, but I shall always be the 
 same tree. I wish for your sake I were 
 more comely." 
 
 And he went home disconsolate. She 
 looked up an old catalogue and wrote a 
 letter. 
 
192 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 VI 
 
 WINCHENDON, S". Y., June 15, 1901. 
 My dear Jenny : 
 
 I was looking over our catalogue to-day, 
 and when I reached your name my heart 
 reproached me that I had not heard from 
 you in so long. I remember hearing that 
 you went to Palestine to practice and I pre- 
 sume you are there now, so I will address 
 you there. I hope you have the biggest 
 practice and the best pay in town. 
 
 Do tell me about yourself. You know 
 how we used to imagine our futures together. 
 You always insisted that while you were 
 providentially foreordained to be an old 
 maid, and therefore sure of eventual suc- 
 cess, I should be picked up by some adoring 
 swain before my shingle had been up a 
 month. But you were wrong ; I have been 
 here five years now and nobody has so much 
 as hinted of love to me. And I have built 
 up something of a practice ; enough so that 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 193 
 
 I have dared to buy a comfortable little 
 house of my own. There is a mortgage on 
 it bigger than the piazza, but I can take 
 care of that. 
 
 Now do write and tell me all about your- 
 self ; write on receipt of this, before the 
 warmth of old times it recalls has worn off. 
 And think of me as still 
 
 Your friend and classmate, 
 
 ELIZABETH LYNDON. 
 
 P. S. The principal of the high school 
 here used to be president of Boylford col- 
 lege, near you. Do you know how he came 
 to go away ? E. L. 
 
 PALESTINE, Ks., June 17, 1901. 
 My dear Betty: 
 
 I will answer your letter before I lay it 
 aside, for it is just dear of you to write. 
 I am so glad to hear from you. It brings 
 the old days right back, as if we were dis- 
 secting together again in the old south room. 
 
194 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 Your letter got to me, although it was 
 not addressed to me. The truth is, Betty 
 dear, I am no longer a physician or a Miss. 
 I started out bravely enough, but I met a 
 good many discouragements, and when the 
 best man in the world told me the one thing 
 he wanted was to bear half my burdens^ I 
 straightway dumped them all upon his 
 broad shoulders and have been absurdly 
 happy ever since. 
 
 I really can't imagine why you have not 
 gone and done likewise. If I had one-half 
 of your beauty or your charm I should 
 never have thought of a profession. To be 
 perfectly frank, I went into medicine be- 
 cause I didn't believe any man would marry 
 me with my snub nose. But my husband 
 says he wouldn't change it, and honestly I 
 don't believe he would. 
 
 As to Boylford college, my husband is 
 one of the trustees, so I know all about 
 that. The Mr. Armstrong you mention 
 
Otf A PEDESTAL 195 
 
 was president there, and resigned because 
 he was over-ruled in a matter of discipline. 
 People generally sustain him in that, but 
 he did one shabby thing; he was engaged to 
 a girl, and went away without so much as 
 saying good-bye to her. It piqued her, of 
 course, and she ran away with the very 
 student Mr. Armstrong had expelled. The 
 parents forgave them and took them home 
 to live, but he proved utterly worthless. 
 
 Among other things he used to make 
 preposterous demands for money, threaten- 
 ing all kinds of unmanly things if he was 
 refused. Finally he forged Mr. Boylford's 
 endorsement to a note for $1,500. Mr. 
 Boylford paid the note, thinking her father 
 would settle it rather than have the man 
 disgraced; but instead her father said he 
 was only too glad to have the fellow locked 
 up where he could do no more mischief. 
 So the husband is in state prison, while 
 the wife and her parents have gone to 
 
196 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 Europe to live. Cora is said to be quite a 
 belle in the English colony at Dresden. I 
 believe she poses as an American widow. It 
 is understood that she has secured a divorce. 
 
 For this unhappy marriage Mr. Arm- 
 strong is of course largely responsible, but 
 apart from that I think the feeling is friend- 
 ly toward him. Certainly he was the best 
 president the college has ever had, and 
 since he went away things have gone from 
 bad to worse. The present man is an utter 
 failure, and the trustees are to elect a new 
 president next week. They have decided 
 on a local clergyman, not because he is the 
 right man, but because he seems the most 
 available. 
 
 But [ am writing too long a letter. Now 
 that the silence is broken, do let us hear 
 often from one another. 
 
 Your ever loving friend, 
 
 JANE HUTCHINSON. 
 
 (Address Mrs. Reginald Hutchinson.) 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 197 
 
 WINCHESTDON, KT. Y., June 19, 1901. 
 My dear Jane : 
 
 Thank you ever so much for answering 
 so promptly. It is so good to hear from you 
 again, and that you are happily married. I 
 shall hope some time to know your husband. 
 
 As to the college, if you want a new 
 president and if Mr. Armstrong was the 
 best president you ever had, why don't you 
 get him back ? He is here only temporari- 
 ly, and is looking for a chair of chemistry 
 somewhere. But though he strives to con- 
 sider it a closed chapter, I can see that his 
 heart is in Boylford college. If your trus- 
 tees know he was right, why not say so and 
 invite him back again ? 
 
 He has told me all about the Cora An- 
 drews affair, and while I am not at liberty to 
 reveal what he said, I can assure you that 
 he acted generously and nobly. He found 
 that he had been shamefully deceived, both 
 by the girl and her mother. 
 
198 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 I really hope this matter can be brought 
 about, Jane. It means a good deal to the 
 man and to the college. 
 
 Your loving friend, 
 
 ELIZABETH LYNDON. 
 
 PALESTINE, Ks., June 21, 1901. 
 My dear Miss Lyndon: 
 
 My wife has read me your letter in regard 
 to Mr. Armstrong. I wish as much as you 
 he could be brought back here, but Mr. 
 Boylford, to whom the college owes every- 
 thing, is a difficult man to deal with. He 
 is kind and generous and means to be just, 
 but he does not like to admit he has been 
 in the wrong. Why not have Mr. Arm- 
 strong come out here ? I think if we could 
 bring him and Mr. Boylford together the 
 matter could be arranged. Let him come 
 as my guest; we shall be delighted to have 
 him here. 
 
 Yours most sincerely, 
 
 REGINALD HUTCHINSON. 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 199 
 
 . Y., June 23, 1901. 
 My dear Mr. Hutehinson: 
 
 I fear you are overestimating my influ- 
 ence with Mr. Armstrong. He has not 
 made me his confidante in this matter; I am 
 not even one of his intimate friends. I 
 happen to know that he is free to take an- 
 other place, and that his heart used to be 
 in his work at Boylford to an extent it is 
 not likely to be elsewhere. It seemed to 
 me if you wanted a president and had 
 already found Mr. Armstrong to be the 
 right man it would be a pity if you did 
 not get together. But Mr. Armstrong 
 has not authorized me to make any over- 
 tures, and he would never dream of mak- 
 ing overtures himself. He gave you his 
 best work and you discredited him; you 
 trustees were in the wrong, and he would 
 expect an acknowledgment from you as the 
 first step toward a return. About some 
 things he is absurdly obstinate, and I do 
 
200 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 not think he would be absurd to be obsti- 
 nate about this. 
 
 Can't you persuade Mr. Boylford to make 
 the overtures ? He has more at stake than 
 Mr. Armstrong, for the right president of 
 a college is not easily found, and every- 
 thing depends upon him. Besides, if Mr. 
 Boylford means, as you say, to be a just 
 man, and has been in the wrong, he ought 
 to desire to make the matter right. 
 
 I don't think I am arguing this matter 
 very well, but I feel deeply anxious that 
 this opportunity may not be lost; it is not 
 likely to recur. 
 
 Most sincerely yours, 
 ELIZABETH 
 
 ( Telegram) 
 
 PALESTINE, Ks., June 25, 1901. 
 Elizabeth Lyndon, M.D. 
 
 Winchendon, N. Y. 
 Can you give assurance A. would accept 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 201 
 
 under conditions named? When does he 
 leave Winchendon ? 
 
 REGINALD HUTCHINSON. 
 
 ( Telegram) 
 
 , KT. Y., June 25, 1901. 
 Reginald Hutchinson, 
 
 Palestine, Ks. 
 
 Not authorized to say so but absolutely 
 certain he would accept. Commencement 
 twenty-seventh. E. L. 
 
 VII 
 
 The Winchendon commencement passed 
 off pleasantly, and when the exercises were 
 over Judge Fellows complimented Mr. 
 Armstrong in a happy little speech that the 
 audience heartily endorsed. Before the 
 applause had subsided a stranger arose and 
 asked, " May I say a word ? " 
 
 He was manifestly a man of character 
 and position, so the judge assented, without 
 
202 OK A PEDESTAL 
 
 observing the start Mr. Armstrong gave at 
 the sound of the stranger's voice, and his 
 slight nod of recognition. 
 
 " My name is Boylford," said the strang- 
 er. " You don't know it here, but there 
 is a town in Kansas named after me, and a 
 college that we think pretty well of out 
 there. Your Mr. Armstrong here was presi- 
 dent of that college two years ago, and he 
 was the best president the college ever had. 
 He resigned because I butted in on a mat- 
 er of discipline. Now when a man makes 
 a fool of himself he can do one of two 
 things, own up, or keep on being a fool. 
 
 " I prefer to own up ; and because the mat- 
 ter got into the newspapers then in a way 
 that wasn't fair to him, I want to own up 
 publicly that he was right and I was wrong; 
 the boy ought to have been expelled; it 
 would have been better for him as well as 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 203 
 
 for everybody else if he had been expelled. 
 So I have learned a lesson. I am here to 
 invite Mr. Armstrong to return to us, and 
 to promise if he comes back there won't be 
 any more interfering. What do you say, 
 Mr. Armstrong ? " 
 
 When the applause permitted, Mr. Arm- 
 strong said: " You can hardly expect m& 
 to decide so important a matter offhand, 
 Mr. Boylford, or in public; but I promise 
 to give it immediate consideration, and I 
 thank you for setting me right before these 
 good people here. Some of them have 
 found it hard to account for what seemed 
 to them a drop from a college presidency to 
 a high school, but I want to say that I have 
 never in my life spent a happier month than 
 this in Winchendon, and I consider any 
 man fortunate who wins such confidence 
 
204 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 and co-operation as these people have 
 given me." 
 
 He spent much of the afternoon with Mr. 
 Boylford, and promised to telegraph him 
 in New York, the next day, leaving him in 
 little doubt as to his decision. His evening 
 hour he spent as usual with Alice. She 
 had heard of the event of the morning, and 
 wanted him to tell her everything that had 
 happened in Boylford. Omitting all refer- 
 ence to Cora, he did so, and was surprised 
 to find how warm his affection was for the 
 college town. 
 
 He had told Dr. Lyndon his life there 
 was a closed book and he believed it. With 
 his resolute will he had shut out all thought 
 of it from his mind. But now that he 
 talked of the laboratory into the walls of 
 which he had built so much of himself, and 
 of his classes, toward so many members of 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 205 
 
 which his interest and sympathy had grown 
 into affection, he realized anew how much 
 Boylford had been to him. Even Mr. 
 Boy] ford himself, coarse and arbitrary as 
 he was in some ways, had meant rightly. 
 If he had talked with Mr. Boylford before 
 expelling the boy there would have been no 
 trouble. So when the hour with Alice was 
 over, his pent-up affection for Boylford 
 overflowed; it seemed the greatest blessing 
 of his life that he could go back there. 
 
 He hurried to Dr. Lyndon's, and was 
 more than gratified to find her on the bench 
 under the tree, and alone. 
 
 " Of course you accept ? " she asked 
 eagerly. 
 
 " That depends on you." 
 
 " On me?" 
 
 " Yes; I shall go if I can take you with 
 me; not otherwise." 
 
206 ON A PEDESTAL 
 
 " Mr. Armstrong! " She sprang to her 
 feet; in the dim moonlight he could see her 
 flush. 
 
 " Yes," he said, easily; surely she would 
 not call him shy now; " I have learned 
 something about love since I came away 
 from Boylford ; I have seen your eyes light 
 up when I came upon you unexpectedly. 
 And 0, Elizabeth, you have grown to be 
 all the world to me." 
 
 He had certainly astonished her; not be- 
 fore had he breathed a hint of love. Final- 
 ly she said, " This is an odd wooing." 
 
 " And a delightful winning," he replied 
 confidently, holding out his arms. 
 
 " But my profession," she urged, hesitat- 
 ingly. 
 
 " That I leave entirely to you; I want 
 you, profession or no profession." Then 
 
ON A PEDESTAL 207 
 
 his arms folded about her, and there was 
 no resistance. 
 
 They planned till midnight. As he bade 
 her adieu he remarked, " You see Boylford 
 came back to me if I did stay on my pedestal . ' ' 
 
 " Perhaps some of your friends arranged 
 the matter for you," she suggested. 
 
 " no," he said; " there is no one there 
 who would take that interest in me. Boyl- 
 ford sent for me because it needed me," he 
 added complacently. She admired him the 
 more for saying it, it was so deliciously 
 masculine. 
 
 " I see he will never come down from 
 it," she said, smiling, after he bad gone. 
 " I must try to be a skilful curator and 
 bring the right people to him." 
 
 Just how he came to be summoned back 
 to Boylford he did not learn till years after, 
 and then not through his wife; which 
 shows that his married life was a happy one. 
 
Miss DUSINBERRIE'S 
 DOWNFALL 
 
MISS DUSINBERRIE'S 
 DOWNFALL 
 
 I 
 
 " Miss Dusinberrie, you and I will not 
 both be teachers in this school next year." 
 
 " I consider that very probable, Mr. Law- 
 rence; but I shall be here." 
 
 War was declared, and Mr. Lawrence 
 proceeded to make sure of his allies without 
 delay. He found the president of the board 
 in his factory, and said, " Mr. Orloff, I 
 have told Miss Dusinberrie I shall not re- 
 main in this school next year if she does." 
 
 " Then Miss Dusinberrie must go. Got 
 anybody in mind for her place ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 (211) 
 
212 MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 " Look up somebody and have her name 
 ready to present at the meeting next 
 month." 
 
 " I should Hke to explain ." 
 
 " I don't want any reasons. There is 
 only one reason for hiring or discharging a 
 teacher, and that is that the principal wants 
 her or doesn't want her. When he doesn't 
 know what teachers the school ought to- 
 have we will get another principal." 
 
 " But Miss Dusinberrie has been here a 
 long while and will stir up powerful friends. " 
 
 16 That doesn't matter. The board runs 
 the school. When we don't run it to suit 
 the people they can elect somebody else." 
 
 " You think the present board will sus- 
 tain this action ? " 
 
 " Five men will vote for it unquestion- 
 ingly. Morse and Hardcastle will oppose 
 it. Lynch and Hall are doubtful; you had 
 
MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 213 
 
 better see both before Miss Dusinberrie 
 does." 
 
 II 
 
 Mr. Lawrence went first to Mr. Hall, a 
 capitalist, principally occupied in looking 
 after his real estate. He found him busy 
 with some mortgages. " Mr. Hall," he 
 said, " I have felt obliged to say to Miss 
 Dusinberrie that we cannot both remain in 
 this school next year." 
 
 Mr. Hall had not seen much of Mr. Law- 
 rence, and what he had seen he did not 
 like; this new principal was too aggressive, 
 too troublesome. Mr. Hall was a conserva- 
 tive; he did not like disturbance; the best 
 school like the best stomach was one you 
 were unconscious of; this fellow was all the 
 time stirring things up. So he replied, 
 " And you are canvassing to make sure you 
 stay ? " 
 
214 MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 " Not at all," returned Mr. Lawrence,, 
 good naturedly. " I never have been obliged 
 to ask to be kept, and I am not likely to 
 begin here. I enjoy my work; I am willing 
 to stay; but if the board think it wiser to 
 keep Miss Dusinberrie I shall go cheerfully, 
 and am not likely to wait long for another 
 place. I chose among three when I came 
 here." 
 
 " Then it would be easier for you to get 
 another place than for Miss Dusinberrie." 
 
 " Unquestionably; at her age it would be 
 practically impossible to get another place 
 if she were dismissed here." 
 
 " Then manifestly you are the one to go." 
 
 " Yes; if the people are taxed for schools 
 in order to provide places for teachers." 
 
 Mr. Hall looked up with more interest;, 
 the fellow was at least clear-headed and 
 
MISS DUSINBEKBIE'S DOWNFALL 215 
 
 fearless. " What are Miss Dusinberrie's 
 faults ?" he asked. 
 
 " Her worst fault is the absence of any 
 excellence." 
 
 " fie; that reply does not do credit to 
 your good sense ; evidently it is prompted 
 not by judgment, but by dislike." 
 
 " On the contrary, my dislike has made 
 me distrust my judgment, and seek in vain 
 to find excuses for her." 
 
 " Everybody admits that she is a schol- 
 arly woman." 
 
 " Her scholarship is the merest smatter- 
 ing; it is the veneer of the cheaper board- 
 ing-school of thirty years ago. She knows 
 something of the text-books of that time, 
 but she does not know even the text-books 
 of to-day, and the subjects she never tried 
 to know." 
 
 "It is curious that you should be the 
 
216 MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 first one in twenty years to discover this." 
 
 " Did you ever talk with her ? " 
 
 " Heaven forbid; learned women are not 
 in my line." 
 
 " I have; I am amazed that a woman of 
 her environment can read so little, and 
 have so little knowledge of current 
 thought." 
 
 " All the other principals have spoken of 
 her in the highest terms." 
 
 " Are you sure you have had any other 
 principals ? So far as I can judge, the 
 recent men have been vice-preceptresses." 
 
 Mr. Hall smiled reminiscently. " There 
 is something in that," he admitted. " How 
 did it take you so long to discover her 
 weakness ? " 
 
 " You will remember that before my first 
 term was finished the schoolhouse burned. 
 For the following year we were in confu- 
 
MISS DUSINBEBKIE'S DOWNFALL 217 
 
 sion; the classes were scattered, I could not 
 keep as watchful oversight as I could have 
 wished, and much of what I did see I made 
 allowance for. But I knew something was 
 wrong in our upper classes, and when we 
 got into the new building I set myself to 
 discovering what it was." 
 
 " ' It ' proving to be Miss Dusinberrie." 
 
 " Exactly. I wish you would come up 
 and hear her conduct a class in American 
 history." 
 
 " You have seen her; tell me about it 
 instead." 
 
 " Why if there is anything characteristic 
 of modern teaching, it is that in history the 
 text-book is only a syllabus for reading and 
 investigation. In the course of the year 
 every member of the class ought to have 
 read entirely a score of books connected 
 with the subject, and looked over a hun- 
 
218 MISS DUSINBEREIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 dred for references. Miss Dusinberrie 
 teaches just the printed page; discovery of 
 San Salvador, eleven lines; battle of Get- 
 tysburg one and one-third pages. She 
 doses out history as a physician doses out 
 medicine, and the pupils like it about as 
 well. It is physic, not food." 
 
 " Yet her pupils appear well in examina- 
 tions." 
 
 " In whose examinations ? In those she 
 prepares herself and conducts in public. 
 You may remember that at the first board 
 meeting after I came I asked why you did 
 not have the advanced regents examina- 
 tions." 
 
 " Yes; and you were told that the board 
 did not think it wise to subject the pupils 
 twice a year to the nervous strain involved. 
 I think we were right about it, although we 
 
MISS DUSINBEEEIE'S DOWNFALL 219 
 
 did vote this year to let you put them in 
 again." 
 
 " The nervous strain of these examina- 
 tions does not come so much upon the pu- 
 pils as upon poor teachers. It is to test 
 teachers, not pupils, that examinations are 
 needed. If we could otherwise be sure the 
 teachers were all right we could dispense 
 with examinations. Shall I tell you why 
 you gave up advanced regents examinations 
 after you had tried them ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Because Miss Dusenberrie could not 
 pass five per cent of her pupils." 
 
 " How do you know that ? " 
 
 " The records show it. The first ad- 
 vanced examination ever given was in June,. 
 1878. In this school Miss Dusinberrie was 
 the teacher of an algebra class of 24 pupils, 
 all of whom tried the examination. Of the 
 
220 MISS DUSINBERKJE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 24 papers five were sent to Albany, and 
 every one of the five came back rejected." 
 
 " Where are the records of that ? " 
 
 " Of the class and the teacher, in the 
 school register. Of the papers sent and 
 rejected, in the printed regents report for 
 1879." 
 
 " Then it was because Miss Dusinberrie 
 could not pass her pupils that so much 
 complaint was made of nervous strain ? " 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 " You have already had an advanced ex- 
 amination this year, haven't you ? " 
 
 " Yes; in January." 
 
 " How did Miss Dusinberrie's classes get 
 on in that ? " 
 
 " As might be expected from what I have 
 said. In history, out of a class of 35 she 
 wanted to send six papers to Albany, but I 
 demonstrated to her that four of the six 
 
MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 221 
 
 could not possibly be marked high enough 
 to pass, and I rather think the other two 
 will come back, the only hope of acceptance 
 being that they were written by particularly 
 bright children, who expressed themselves 
 well." 
 
 " What excuse had Miss Dusinberrie to 
 offer?" 
 
 " She complained that the examinations 
 were too long and unfair and expected too 
 much of the children." 
 
 " What did you tell her?" 
 
 " That her methods were altogether 
 wrong, not in accord with modern teaching; 
 that we must discard the dry old text-book 
 she knows by heart, and teach history as a 
 subject that is alive." 
 
 " What did she say to that ? " ; \ 
 
 " She tried to petrify me with a stony 
 glare. When I insisted on an answer, she 
 
222 MISS DUSISTBEKRIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 denied my right to interfere with her text- 
 books or her methods. Then I said we 
 should not both be here next year." 
 
 " You make a strong case. But suppose 
 you are right; that it would be better for 
 the school to have another preceptress: 
 have you reflected what it means to attempt 
 to put her out ? " 
 
 " Mr. Orloff tells me I can depend upon 
 the votes of a majority of the board." 
 
 " Yes, that is true; there are five who 
 hang together and sneeze when Mr. Orloff 
 takes snuff; so much the worse for them; 
 it is just as much a ring as though it were 
 a corrupt ring. But suppose you get your 
 votes and put Miss Dusinberrie out, you 
 don't suppose the matter stops there ? " 
 
 " I presume some of her friends would 
 complain among themselves; but after the 
 new teacher was established and the com- 
 
MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 223 
 
 munity saw how much better results we 
 were getting, everything would be smooth 
 again.'' 
 
 Mr. Hall smiled. " My dear fellow," he 
 said, " I would give a great deal to have as 
 little knowledge of the world as you show. 
 Let me tell you what will happen if you carry 
 this thing through. You will divide this 
 village into two factions that will last for 
 months and probably for years. Her faction 
 will never believe that you can be right in 
 anything. They will oppose you in the 
 school-board, in school, in the community. 
 They will refuse to trade with the men on 
 the board who voted your way. The griev- 
 ance will grow with time instead of dimin- 
 ishing; people hug the grudge long after 
 they have forgotten the cause. In the end 
 you will give it up and go some where else, 
 feeling that your work here has been largely 
 
224 MISS DUSIKBEEKIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 a failure because her faction would never 
 give you a fair chance." 
 
 " But why should she have such a hold 
 on the people as to enlist such interest in 
 her cause ? She cannot have many real 
 friends." 
 
 " In a village like this people are always 
 seeking a cause upon which to divide. We 
 have few large interests, so we have to oc- 
 cupy ourselves with petty ones. But Miss 
 Dusinberrie has friends; she is looked upon 
 as the type of a well bred woman." 
 
 " That is one of my strongest objections 
 to her. She has imposed upon the com- 
 munity and the school a wholly false ideal 
 of what a lady should be. The real lady is 
 simple, sincere, thoughtful of others; Miss 
 Dusinberrie is artificial, pretentious, thor- 
 oughly selfish. Our school girls are growing 
 
MISS DUSIKBEREIE'S DOWNFALL 225 
 
 up to imitate her, and they could not have 
 a worse model." 
 
 " But this village has accepted her type 
 of a lady for twenty years, and will not re- 
 ject it because you say it is false. The 
 people will more readily believe that you 
 are no gentleman than that she is no lady." 
 
 " The more necessity that her type of a 
 lady be no longer kept on a pedestal by the 
 school-board." 
 
 " Very likely, but that does not decrease 
 our present difficulty. To dismiss Miss 
 Dusinberrie is to invite a long and bitter 
 controversy. For one thing, her church 
 will take it up." 
 
 " Which is that? I don't happen to 
 know where she goes to church."" 
 
 " The Methodist; she is the only Metho- 
 dist among the teachers. And by the way, 
 
226 MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 if you carry the change through, get a 
 Methodist in her place if possible." 
 
 " Why, what has her church to do with a 
 teacher in the public schools ? " 
 
 " A great deal; not directly, of course, 
 but indirectly. In a village like this almost 
 all the social interests are connected with 
 the churches. Teachers are sociably desir- 
 able members of the community, and it is 
 only fair that each of the churches should 
 have a share among them. On the other 
 hand, by having teachers in each of the 
 churches the school is strengthened ; all the 
 parents and all the taxpayers are reached 
 through some representatives of the school." 
 
 " Then you try to divide up the teachers 
 among the different churches ? " 
 
 " So far as we can, yes. In Miss Dusin- 
 berrie's place, for instance, if there were a 
 choice between two teachers of nearly equal 
 
MISS DUSINBEKKIE'S DOWNFALL 227 
 
 desirability otherwise, I should vote for the 
 one that was a Methodist." 
 
 " You have no prejudice against any 
 church ? " 
 
 " Not in the least; the board is not a 
 religious organization, and the schools are 
 supported by the taxes of all denomina- 
 tions. For instance, we have always had 
 rather more than a proportionate share of 
 Catholics, not because we were seeking 
 Catholics, but because the Catholic girls 
 who have worked their way through normal 
 school or college have usually done so 
 against obstacles, showing natural ability 
 and force often exceptional. Some of them 
 who came from humble homes become our 
 choicest women. You know that, Mr. Law- 
 rence; you married one." 
 
 ' ' Yes, I married one. Her father and 
 mother are poor, plain, illiterate people; 
 
228 MISS DUSINBEKEIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 but they are physically and morally sound, 
 and they have a never-failing sense of hu- 
 mor that carries them through any unfa- 
 miliarity with conventionalities, and they 
 are welcome guests at our house in any 
 company. As for my wife Mr. Hall, I 
 have always had a high ideal of woman, 
 but every day since I have been married 
 that ideal has risen as I have seen it real- 
 ized in my wife. I never realized before 
 that goodness is not position but direction, 
 not where we are to-day but whether we 
 are farther along the right path than we 
 were yesterday. She is a constant stimulus 
 to the highest effort; humble, always look- 
 ing to the heights next to be attained^ 
 charitable, loving God and her fellow-men, 
 intellectually keen, my companion in every 
 thought, a helpmeet no man was ever 
 
MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 229 
 
 worthy of but whom I am profoundly 
 grateful for." 
 
 Mr. Hall looked at the principal long 
 and earnestly. Then he said slowly: 
 
 " I like to hear you say that. I never 
 
 married ". He paused and for some 
 
 time looked out of the window in silence. 
 To Mr. Lawrence it seemed that he had 
 been upon the point of telling something 
 of the woman he had hoped to marry, and 
 he-wondered what rival had taken her from 
 him; perhaps the Grim Reaper. But what- 
 ever Mr. Hall may have felt the impulse to 
 say, he repressed any self revelation and 
 concluded: " but I can appreciate what an 
 inspiration it must be to have such a woman 
 continually at one's side. Lawrence," he 
 concluded, returning to the original sub- 
 ject, " I am with you in this Dusinberrie 
 matter. It is going to be a long and hard 
 
230 MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 fight, but we will try to win out. I have 
 not been entirely unaware of her faults,, 
 but I had not realized they were so harmful. 
 We will have another preceptress, and when 
 her friends fight us we will face them. By 
 the way, Lawrence, have you and your wife 
 any engagement for Sunday evening ? I 
 want you to come to our house for tea. My 
 sister will call on Mrs. Lawrence with the 
 formal invitation, but keep the date open;. 
 I feel that we all ought to be better ac- 
 quainted." 
 
 As he went away Mr. Lawrence felt 
 elated. For himself he did not care for 
 place in society, but for his wife he wa& 
 eager the world should know her as he 
 knew her. " The Mansion," as Mr. Hall'a 
 fine old residence was called, was in this- 
 village the one house that could confer 
 social distinction. It opened its doors to- 
 
MISS DUSrSTBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 231 
 
 comparatively few, but those few were al- 
 ways welcome. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Mr. Lynch was a pettifogger and justice 
 of the peace. When Mr. Lawrence entered 
 his office he found Miss Dusinberrie already 
 there, and was about to withdraw. 
 
 " Not at all, not at all," said Squire 
 Lynch. " You and Miss Dusinberrie are 
 both here on the same business, and you 
 may as well transact it together. You 
 want to get Miss Dusinberrie out of the 
 school. I saw you coming out of Mr. 
 Hall's. You have been telling him why. 
 Now tell me why before Miss Dusinberrie. 
 Tell me just what you told Mr. Hall." 
 
 " It would not be pleasant for Miss Dusin- 
 berrie to hear all that I told Mr. Hall," 
 replied Mr. Lawrence, coldly. 
 
 " she'll hear it all right," returned 
 
232 MISS PUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 Squire Lynch, maliciously; " these things 
 always get around, and it is more manly for 
 you to say it before her face then behind 
 her back." 
 
 " [should think so," sniffed Miss Dusin- 
 berrie. 
 
 " Very well, if you insist, I told Mr. Hall 
 that Miss Dusinberrie's scholarship was 
 superficial, her methods were out of date, 
 and her example as a woman and a lady not 
 such as should be set before the school." 
 
 Miss Dusinberrie sprang to her feet and 
 shook her fist in his face. " You a judge 
 of a lady," she exclaimed; " you who 
 married a common Irish " 
 
 " Miss Dusinberrie, Miss Dusinberrie, 
 this will never do," interrupted Squire 
 Lynch, seizing her by the arm and forcing 
 her back to her chair. But Mr. Lawrence 
 said scornfully, " Fortunately my wife 
 
MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 233 
 
 needs no defence; Miss Dusinberrie is only 
 taking pains to demonstrate the truth of 
 what I have just said." 
 
 Miss Dusinberrie sprang up again, but 
 Squire Lynch insisted that she should re- 
 main quiet. " We will consider this a 
 court," he said; " it may come to that 
 before we get through with it. I will be 
 the judge, Miss Dusinberrie shall be the 
 defendant, and Mr. Lawrence is the witness 
 for the prosecution. I will cross-examine 
 him. Mr. Lawrence, you say Miss Dusin- 
 berrie's scholarship is superficial; what 
 proof have you of that ? " 
 
 " The proof both of that and of inade- 
 quate methods is found in the fact that her 
 classes cannot pass the regents examina- 
 tions," 
 
 " What have you to say to that, Miss 
 Dusinberrie ? " 
 
234 MISS DUSINBERKIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 " I have to say what everybody but Mr. 
 Lawrence knows, that the regents examina- 
 tions are a very unfair test. They are ruin- 
 ing the schools. Instead of working for 
 scholarship, teachers are working just to 
 get their pupils through. To succeed is 
 not proof of good teaching; it only shows 
 a low aim." 
 
 " What do you say to that, Mr. Law- 
 rence ? " 
 
 " That the question is too large to be 
 argued here, and that it would be modest 
 for us to accept the decision of the vast 
 majority of the teachers and school officers 
 of the state. But even if regents examina- 
 tions are not an exact test, at least they 
 afford a warning when of Miss Dusinberrie's 
 class of thirty-five in American history not 
 more than two pass. A larger proportion 
 
MISS DUSINBEKKIE'S DOWNFALL 235 
 
 than that ought to pass any test, no matter 
 how unfair." 
 
 " How many passed in your classes ? " 
 
 " All the papers went to Albany, in all 
 my classes. Possibly two may come back 
 on account of carelessness: one boy omitted 
 altogether a question he could have an- 
 swered as well as any one on the paper." 
 
 " Isn't such uniformity of passing rather 
 suspicious, Mr. Lawrence ? " 
 
 " Yes," broke in Miss Dusinberrie, 
 " doesn't it look as if he corrected the papers 
 himself before he sent them to Albany ? " 
 
 Mr. Lawrence turned on her quickly. 
 " Why do you ask that question?" he 
 asked her. 
 
 " He is hit," said Mr. Lynch to himself^ 
 rubbing his hands. 
 
 " Because I have my reasons for thinking 
 
236 MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 that is just what you did," she replied, ma- 
 liciously. 
 
 " That is a serious charge to make, and I 
 advise you to have your proof at hand be- 
 fore you repeat it," he said warningly. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Lawrence," said Squire 
 Lynch, " the matter will have to come 
 before the board, and then we shall see 
 what we shall see. It is hardly worth while 
 to discuss it further now." 
 
 After Mr. Lawrence was gone, Squire 
 Lynch said to Miss Dusinberrie: 
 
 " I believe we have got him on that fixing 
 up the papers." 
 
 " I am sure of it," she replied, compres- 
 sing her lips. 
 
 " Now, Miss Dusinberrie, this is a very 
 important matter to you; it means six 
 hundred dollars a year for a good many 
 
MISS DUSIKBBKRIE'S DOWNFALL 237 
 
 years; you ought to be represented before 
 the board by a lawyer." 
 
 " Squire Lynch," she said, smiling 
 blandly upon him, " I am sure there is no 
 other lawyer to whom I could so safely in- 
 trust my case as to you." 
 
 " But you see, Miss Dusinberrie, I am a 
 member of the board, and if I acted at the 
 same time as your attorney I could not bring 
 in a bill for services. Now if before the 
 board meeting you should happen to drop 
 fifty dollars where I could not help finding 
 it " 
 
 " I understand," replied Miss Dusin- 
 berrie, knowingly. " I will draw the money 
 from the bank to-morrow." 
 IV 
 
 The board meetings were always nominally 
 open to the public, but there were seldom 
 any spectators. On the night of the elec- 
 
238 MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 tion of teachers for the ensuing year, how- 
 ever, every available foot of space was oc- 
 cupied, not only because of interest in Miss 
 Dusinberrie's fate, but because Squire 
 Lynch, who liked an audience, had scattered 
 hints that there would be " something 
 doing ". 
 
 After the routine business was disposed 
 of, the report of the committee on teachers 
 was called for. The chairman read the list, 
 remarking that there were no changes in 
 salaries, and that there was only one change 
 in the names, the substitution for precep- 
 tress of a Smith graduate with three years 
 experience. He moved the adoption of the 
 report, which was seconded, and then 
 Squire Lynch moved to amend by substitut- 
 ing the name of Miss Dusinberrie for pre- 
 ceptress. The amendment being seconded 
 
MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 239 
 
 and before the house, Squire Lynch rose 
 impressively to speak. 
 
 " We are brought face to face," he said, 
 " with a most singular state of things. 
 Miss Dusinberrie has been preceptress of 
 this school for more than twenty years. 
 She is teaching to-day many children of 
 those she taught when she first came here. 
 She has been respected and" trusted and 
 honored. Principal after principal has ex- 
 pressed his appreciation of her. It re- 
 mained for this young man," and he pointed 
 scornfully at Mr. Lawrence, " to discover 
 that she was unworthy to occupy the place 
 she had filled so long with distinction; for 
 this young fellow, himself a stranger here, 
 not yet two years principal of the school. 
 Before he is fairly introduced himself he 
 seeks to introduce another new teacher, 
 
240 MISS DUSIKBEERIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 another young person recently out of col- 
 lege. 
 
 66 What reasons does he give for desiring 
 this change ? What charges does he make 
 so serious that he forces an issue and says 
 to the board of education, ' Discharge her, 
 or you lose ME ' ? 
 
 " Why, Mr. President, aside from the 
 fact that he thinks she is no lady and I am 
 reminded of the two men quarrelling, one 
 of whom shouts, ' You are no gentleman,' 
 and the other inquires, ' Do you think your- 
 self a gentleman?' ' Of course I do;' 
 ' Then I am glad you don't think me one ' 
 aside, I say, from this opinion of Mr. 
 Lawrence, which is no better than the opin- 
 ion of any lady or gentleman 'here, and 
 which is at variance with the opinion of 
 every other lady and gentleman here, 
 aside, I say, from this opinion he has just 
 
MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 241 
 
 one charge to make against her, that she 
 didn't get all her scholars through the re- 
 gents examinations; and to show what an 
 awful charge that is, he testifies that he got 
 every one of his scholars through. 
 
 " Now, Mr. President, I have had consid- 
 erable experience in the police court, and I 
 have learned one thing, that where a dozen 
 witnesses testify exactly the same in regard 
 to a matter they are all lying; they have 
 been coached, and are repeating not what 
 they remember seeing but what they re- 
 member being told to saj/. So when some 
 of Miss Dusinberrie's scholars pass and 
 some don't pass, that is natural enough; 
 but when every one of Mr. Lawrence's 
 scholars passes there is something wrong. 
 I can tell you what that something wrong 
 is: Mr. Lawrence doctored his examination 
 papers before he sent them to Albany." 
 
242 MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 Squire Lynch was watching his audience, 
 he saw that he had made a great sensation, 
 and he stopped right there, looking trium- 
 phantly at Miss Dusinberrie, who smiled 
 sympathetically back. 
 
 " This is a serious charge to make," said 
 Mr. Orloff. " What proof have you ? " 
 
 " Internal proof," replied Squire Lynch. 
 " If he had been satisfied to have half pass, 
 or even three-quarters, people might have 
 believed it was done honestly; but that 
 every one should pass is absurd." 
 
 "What have you to say?" asked Mr. 
 Or! off of Mr. Lawrence. 
 
 " That the regents examinations are 
 meant to be a test of the proficiency fairly 
 to be expected, and that every scholar 
 should pass who has been properly classed 
 and properly instructed. As to this par- 
 
MISS DUSINBEERIE'S DOWNFALL 243 
 
 ticular instance I should like to offer a little 
 testimony. '' 
 
 The president nodded, and Miss Benham, 
 the second assistant, testified that she had 
 herself gathered the papers in all of Mr. 
 Lawrence's classes that were examined; 
 that she had sat at the table with him and 
 helped him look them over; that the papers 
 had not been out of her sight from the 
 time they were gathered till Mr. Lawrence 
 had locked them up in the iron box and 
 given it to the janitor to be sent to the re- 
 gents ; and that no mark of any kind had 
 been made upon any one of the papers. 
 That seemed conclusive, and the matter 
 would have ended there, had not Miss 
 Dusinberrie sniffed contemptuously : " That 
 girl would swear to anything." Mr. Law- 
 rence's eyes showed the danger signal, and 
 
244 MISS DUSIKBERBIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 he asked permission to make some inquiries 
 of Miss Dusinberrie. 
 
 " Miss Dusinberrie," he began, " do 
 you remember that on the day of the Ameri- 
 can history examination Lucy Neal waa 
 taken ill and asked to be excused ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " You directed her to write a note to me 
 asking permission to go ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " She wrote this note at her desk ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " I returned it to you asking you to en- 
 dorse your approval upon it ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " You wrote this endorsement at your 
 desk." 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Is that the note with your endorsement 
 upon it? " 
 
MISS DUSIXBEBRIE'S DOWNFALL 245 
 
 Miss Dusinberrie looked at the note Mr. 
 Lawrence handed her, and replied, " Yes, 
 sir." 
 
 " I will ask you gentlemen to examine 
 that note," said Mr. Lawrence, handing it 
 to Mr. Orloff. " The body of the note is 
 in the usual school ink, which has turned 
 a bluish black. Miss Dusinberrie's en- 
 dorsement is in an ink that has turned to a 
 brownish black plainly distinguishable. 
 The reason is that the night before this 
 note was written and endorsed I changed 
 the ink in the bottle on Miss Dusinberrie's 
 desk. In looking over her history papers 
 I became convinced that she had altered 
 some of the spellings. This ink shows that 
 the next day she did alter some of the alge- 
 bra papers. I. have here four papers so al- 
 tered, the brownish black ink being plainly 
 
246 MISS DUSINBEBRIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 distinguishable. Moreover, two of the cor- 
 rections are in themselves errors." 
 
 When the papers were first produced Miss 
 Dusinberrie had tried to snatcli them. 
 Failing in that, she had protested indig- 
 nantly that it was a mean trick to play upon 
 a lady; that no gentleman would do it. 
 Even Squire Lynch saw that it was impos- 
 sible to defend her further, the motion to 
 amend was lost, and the original list of 
 teachers * recommended by the committee 
 was elected. 
 
 Miss Dusinberrie hurried out of the 
 room, but loitered upon a corner till Squire 
 Lynch passed. She joined him and asked: 
 " Don't I get any of that fifty back ? " 
 
 " Not a dollar," he replied indignantly; 
 " what can a client expect who doesn't 
 trust her lawyer ? You could be impris- 
 oned for what you concealed from me." 
 
MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 247 
 
 u You think I am beaten," she said, " so 
 you go over to the other side. I tell you 
 I am going to win out. There will be 
 three men elected in August who will vote 
 for me. I know the ropes and I am going 
 to work them." 
 
 She explained her plans at some length, 
 to Squire Lynch's admiration. " By Jove, 
 I believe she'll do it," he said; and he re- 
 mained her ally, with an additional retainer. 
 V 
 
 Isabella Hall was much older than her 
 brother; indeed the family record showed 
 that she was close to the three score and ten 
 that seem more than normal. But few 
 would have guessed it. Her cheeks were 
 plump, her complexion was rosy, her figure 
 was erect, her look was alert, and her eyes- 
 were quick to twinkle. Indeed in many 
 ways she was unaffectedly girlish. " Belle, 
 
248 MISS DUSI^BERRIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 you will never be really grown up," her 
 brother used to say to her fondly, when she 
 had done something that seemed to him 
 especially unsophisticated. She was a sensi- 
 ble business woman, a good neighbor, ready 
 to give herself as well as her money when 
 needed ; more than once she had been sole 
 nurse when the need was urgent and profes- 
 sional services were not to be had. Yet she 
 was dainty to her finger-tips; she could 
 tolerate no coarseness in her companions. 
 
 This was largely why she had never mar- 
 ried. Wealthy, accomplished, an unusual 
 beauty, she had attracted many suitors, but 
 each in his turn had somehow offended her, 
 and finally she had resigned herself to 
 single-blessedness. She travelled a great 
 deal; she had spent the preceding year with 
 her brother in Mediterranean countries. 
 But at home she had little companionship. 
 
MISS DUSOTBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 249 
 
 She was associated with other ladies of the 
 place in benevolent and other enterprises, 
 and always met them cordially, but she 
 found none she wanted to be intimate with. 
 When her brother asked her to call upon 
 Mrs. Lawrence she did it cheerfully enough, 
 without expectation beyond fulfilment of 
 a duty. But the moment she looked into 
 Mrs. Lawrence's honest gray eyes, full of 
 spirit and fun, she felt unusual attraction, 
 and as she talked with her and saw how 
 simple and straightforward she was, how 
 quick of apprehension, how sympathetic, 
 how original in her directness, and how ob- 
 servant of little characteristics, so that her 
 narration was almost personation, Miss Hall 
 felt that here was indeed a rare creature, 
 and hoped she might win her for a friend. 
 As she rose to go she said as much, and 
 Mrs. Lawrence, who had revelled in the 
 
250 MISS DUSINBEKKIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 atmosphere of refinement and culture, 
 looking into the old lady's wistful eyes and 
 divining there was hunger there, impulsive- 
 ly threw her arms about Miss Hall's neck, 
 exclaiming, " I will love you dearly if you 
 will let me." 
 
 She had stumbled upon the straight path 
 to Miss Hall's heart, and thereafter the two 
 women were the closest friends. No day 
 passed that one was not at the house of 
 the other, and as the men also became warm- 
 ly intimate, almost every day some meal was 
 taken by the four in common, nearly as 
 often in the modest cottage of the Law- 
 rences as in the proud mansion of the Halls; 
 and perhaps with quite equal pleasure, for 
 Theresa's simple dishes were capitally 
 cooked. 
 
 VI 
 
 On the day before the school election 
 Mrs. Lawrence was having an afternoon 
 
MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 251 
 
 cup of tea at the Halls. " How do you 
 think the vote will be to-morrow ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " We are hopelessly beaten," said Miss 
 Hall. " Howard refuses even to be here 
 during election; he thinks it would be un- 
 dignified to appear where his presence 
 might influence a vote in his favor." 
 
 " Walter is just the same," said Mrs.. 
 Lawrence; " he is going to be away too. I 
 told him that when he knew your brother 
 came up for re-election he certainly ought 
 to take off his coat and work for him, but 
 he said Mr. Hall and he must both stand 
 upon their records. I told him that was 
 first-rate pride, but mighty poor politics." 
 
 " I wish we women had a hand in poli- 
 tics, Theresa," said Miss Hall. 
 
 " Suppose we do have," suggested 
 Theresa. 
 
252 MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 " How ? " asked Miss Hall, mystified. 
 
 Theresa took from her pocket a small 
 memorandum-book. " That book contains 
 an alphabetical list of every voter qualified 
 to cast a ballot at the election to-morrow," 
 she said. 
 
 Miss Hall could hardly credit her eyes. 
 " How did you get it ? " she asked. 
 
 " I made it. You know I took the school 
 census." 
 
 " Yes; I wondered why you wanted to 
 do that." 
 
 " I had several reasons. For one I 
 needed the money; we have lots of use of 
 that in our early house-keeping." 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Then I wanted to see the people in 
 their homes and get acquainted with them; 
 there was just an element of settlement 
 work about it." 
 
MISS DUSINBERKIE'S DOWNFALL 253 
 
 " I can understand that." 
 
 " Then I didn't want your brother to lose 
 by standing up for my husband; so I have 
 made pretty sure of his re-election." 
 
 "Theresa Lawrence! What do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 " Why, while I was asking questions it 
 seemed sociable to have a little chat, and I 
 took care that the women of the district 
 knew just how matters stood." 
 
 " Suppose they were on Miss Dusinber- 
 rie's side ? " 
 
 " Not many of them were. The few that I 
 found prejudiced I let alone. Bat enough 
 have promised to vote our ticket to-morrow 
 to win the day." 
 
 " You little mischief-maker," cried Miss 
 Hall, embracing her admiringly, " you are 
 a wonder. But are you sure they will turn 
 out ? " 
 
254 MISS miSINBERKIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 " That is just where I want you to help 
 me. I shall stand at the polls all day to see 
 that none vote who are unqualified, and to 
 check off the names of those who have 
 promised to vote our way. Now in the 
 afternoon if" and she held the old lady at 
 arms length and looked at her roguishly, 
 " if a certain aristocratic but warm-hearted 
 person whom I know would get out her car- 
 riage and ride around to the addresses I 
 would give her for the faithless, and bring 
 them to the polls " 
 
 " Theresa, you are a darling," cried the 
 old lady enthusiastically; " I was afraid 
 you were going to leave me out." 
 VII 
 
 Mr. Hall and Mr. Lawrence had not gone 
 away together, but they had met in Win- 
 chendon and had come home in the same 
 train, arriving just in time to vote. They 
 
MISS DUSDOEKKIE'S DOWNFALL 255 
 
 had agreed that the election was lost. Miss 
 Dusinberrie had canvassed the village as 
 The Woman with a Grievance, and, as Mr. 
 Hall had predicted, she had found a lot of 
 idle minds glad of some new controversy. 
 Her church had taken the matter up, with 
 the more spirit because the Smith graduate 
 was a Unitarian; and by personal solicita- 
 tion Miss Dusinberrie had pledged so many 
 voters that the result seemed assured. 
 
 Mr. Lawrence had even discussed a course 
 of action; he did not care to stay with the 
 balance of power on the board elected to 
 oppose him, and Mr. Hall had proposed to 
 him to give up teaching and act as agent for 
 some of his property. This Mr. Lawrence 
 was reluctant to do, for he loved teaching; 
 but he thought he might be compelled to 
 accept. 
 
 As they walked up the hill to the school- 
 
256 MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 house they saw an unusual crowd about the 
 polls, and when they made their way through 
 were astonished to find Mrs. Lawrence stand- 
 ing behind the inspectors, note-book in 
 hand, evidently treated with deference as a 
 personage of importance. Mr. Lawrence 
 trusted his wife too fully to criticize, but 
 he wondered. 
 
 " Why, Tessie, what is all this?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " Victory, that's all," replied his wife 
 exultantly; " the day is ours. Look," 
 she cried merrily. 
 
 Both gentlemen turned and saw Isabella 
 Hall drive up, sitting erect on the front 
 seat of her most stately equipage, out of 
 which got three women apparently fresh 
 from the wash-tub and came forward to 
 vote. The inspectors turned to Theresa, 
 who found their names in her book and 
 
MISS DUSIKBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 257 
 
 explained why the wOmen were eligible. 
 They cast their votes, returned to the carriage 
 and were driven away, Theresa having in 
 the mean time given Miss Hall another list 
 of names. 
 
 Just then Miss Dusinberrie came up, 
 heading a lot of puffing matrons. 
 
 " We'll take a little share in this woman 
 voting ourselves," she said angrily, offering 
 her vote. 
 
 The inspectors looked inquiringly at 
 Theresa, who shook her head and said, 
 " Not qualified." 
 
 " Not qualified, when those washerwomen 
 can vote ? " 
 
 " Those washerwomen, as you call 
 them," replied Theresa, " have children of 
 school age residing with them." 
 
 " Miss Coit voted, and she hasn't any 
 children." 
 
258 MISS DUSINBERRIE'S DOWNFALL 
 
 " No, but she is -assessed upon the last 
 roll for more than fifty dollars." 
 
 " Fifty dollars! I have five thousand 
 dollars in bonds and in the bank." 
 
 " That will interest this year's assessors 
 but it does not count here; the amount 
 must be assessed upon last year's tax-list." 
 
 Miss Dusinberrie's indignation was so 
 overwhelming that it made her speechless; 
 for a moment she looked as if she would 
 like to tear Theresa limb from limb, but 
 she thought better of it and went off mut- 
 tering, the women she had brought follow- 
 ing her without an attempt to vote. 
 
 Miss Hall brought up two more women 
 just before the polls closed, and Theresa 
 ran over her list. " We have certainly 26 
 majority," she said, " and I think we shall 
 have more. A good many who expected to 
 vote the^other ticket have probably secretly 
 
MISS DUSI^BERRIE'S DOWNFALL 259 
 
 'Come over to us when they found how things 
 were going." 
 
 She was right; Mr. Hall's ticket was 
 elected by a majority of 82, so decisive that 
 there was no thought of further contest. 
 Miss Dusinberrie decided to move out of 
 town, partly because she was afraid of being 
 taxed on the five thousand dollars, and 
 partly because the fact she had saved so 
 much did not correspond with some state- 
 ments she had made during the canvass. 
 " I beat the men to a stand-still " she said 
 to Squire Lynch, viciously, " and it was 
 hard luck to be vanquished at the last by 
 that little Irish vixen." 
 
 Squire Lynch was not sympathetic; he 
 had gone over to the winning side. " She 
 beat you at your own game," he said, " and 
 she played it square." X\T V & R A ^^y 
 { UNIVERSITY I 
 
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 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
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