The delegation of matrons ruffled like a group of startled hens at this interposition, which was Newton Bronson's effective seizing of the opportunity to issue a progress bulletin in the research work on the Bronson dairy herd.
"Newton!" said his mother, "don't interrupt me when I'm talking to the teacher!"
"Well, then," said Newton, "don't tell the teacher that pa knew which cows were good and which were poor. If any one in this district wants to know about their cows they'll have to come to this shop. And I can tell you that it'll pay 'em to come too, if they're going to make anything selling cream. Wait until we get out our reports on the herds, ma!"
The women were rather stampeded by this onslaught of the irregular troops--especially Mrs. Bronson. She was placed in the position of a woman taking a man's wisdom from her ne'er-do-well son for the first time in her life. Like any other mother in this position, she felt a flutter of pride--but it was strongly mingled with a motherly desire to spank him. The deputation rose, with a unanimous feeling that they had been scored upon.
"Cows!" scoffed Mrs. Peterson. "If we leave you in this yob, Mr. Irwin, our children will know nothing but cows and hens and soils and grains--and where will the culture come in? How will our boys and girls appear when we get fixed so we can move to town? We won't have no culture at all, Yim!"
"Culture!" exclaimed Jim. "Why--why, after ten years of the sort of school I would give you if I were a better teacher, and could have my way, the people of the cities would be begging to have their children admitted so that they might obtain real culture--culture fitting them for life in the twentieth century--"
"Don't bother to get ready for the city children, Jim," said Mrs. Bonner sneeringly, "you won't be teaching the Woodruff school that long."
All this time, the dark-faced Cracker had been glooming from a corner, earnestly seeking to fathom the wrongness he sensed in the gathering. Now he came forward.
"I reckon I may be making a mistake to say anything," said he, "f'r we-all is strangers hyeh, an' we're pore; but I must speak out for Mr. Jim--I must! Don't turn him out, folks, f'r he's done mo' f'r us than eveh any one done in the world!"
