"I don't send them to school to be happy, Yim," replied Mrs. Peterson, calling him by the name most familiarly known to all of them; "I send them to learn to be higher people than their father and mother. That's what America means!"
"They'll be higher people--higher than their parents--higher than their teacher--they'll be efficient farmers, and efficient farmers' wives. They'll be happy, because they will know how to use more brains in farming than any lawyer or doctor or merchant can possibly use in his business. I'm educating them to find an outlet for genius in farming!"
"It's a fine thing," said Mrs. Bonner, coming to the aid of her fellow soldiers, "to work hard for a lifetime, an' raise nothing but a family of farmers! A fine thing!"
"They will be farmers anyhow," cried Jim, "in spite of your efforts--ninety out of every hundred of them! And of the other ten, nine will be wage-earners in the cities, and wish to God they were back on the farm; and the hundredth one will succeed in the city. Shall we educate the ninety-and-nine to fail, that the hundredth, instead of enriching the rural life with his talents, may steal them away to make the city stronger? It is already too strong for us farmers. Shall we drive our best away to make it stronger?"
The guns of Mrs. Bonner and Mrs. Peterson were silenced for a moment, and Mrs. Bronson, after gazing about at the typewriter, the hectograph, the exhibits of weed seeds, the Babcock milk tester, and the other unscholastic equipment, pointed to the list of words, and the arithmetic problems on the board.
"Do you get them words from the speller?" she asked.
"No," said he, "we got them from a lesson on seed wheat."
"Did them examples come out of an arithmetic book?" cross-examined she.
"No," said Jim, "we used problems we made ourselves. We were figuring profits and losses on your cows, Mrs. Bronson!"
"Ezra Bronson," said Mrs. Bronson loftily, "don't need any help in telling what's a good cow. He was farming before you was born!"
"Like fun, he don't need help! He's going to dry old Cherry off and fatten her for beef; and he can make more money on the cream by beefing about three more of 'em. The Babcock test shows they're just boarding on us without paying their board!"