"I don't see," said a voice over against the cooking exhibit, "what there is in this to set people talking? Buttonholes! Cookies! Humph!"
It was Mrs. Bonner who had clearly come to scoff. With her was Mrs. Bronson, whose attitude was that of a person torn between conflicting influences. Her husband had indicated to the crafty Bonner and the subtle Peterson that while he was still loyal to the school board, and hence perforce opposed to Jim Irwin, and resentful to the decision of the county superintendent, his adhesion to the institutions of the Woodruff District as handed down by the fathers was not quite of the thick-and-thin type. For he had suggested that Jennie might have been sincere in rendering her decision, and that some people agreed with her: so Mrs. Bronson, while consorting with the censorious Mrs. Bonner evinced restiveness when the school and its work was condemned. Was not her Newton in charge of a part of this show! Had he not taken great interest in the project? Was he not an open and defiant champion of Jim Irwin, and a constant and enthusiastic attendant upon, not only his classes, but a variety of evening and Saturday affairs at which the children studied arithmetic, grammar, geography, writing and spelling, by working on cows, pigs, chickens, grains, grasses, soils and weeds? And had not Newton become a better boy--a wonderfully better boy? Mrs. Bronson's heart was filled with resentment that she also could not be enrolled among Jim Irwin's supporters. And when Mrs. Bonner sneered at the buttonholes and cookies, Mrs. Bronson, knowing how the little fingers had puzzled themselves over the one, and young faces had become floury and red over the other, flared up a little.
"And I don't see," said she, "anything to laugh at when the young girls do the best they can to make themselves capable housekeepers. I'd like to help them." She turned to Mrs. Bonner as if to add "If this be treason, make the most of it!" but that lady was far too good a diplomat to be cornered in the same enclosure with a rupture of relations.
"And quite right, too," said she, "in the proper place, and at the proper time. The little things ought to be helped by every real woman--of course!"