CHAPTER XVII
A TROUBLE SHOOTER
A sudden July storm had drenched the fields and filled the swales withwater. The cultivators left the corn-fields until the next day's sun and anight of seepage might once more fit the black soil for tillage. Thelittle boys rolled up their trousers and tramped home from school with therich mud squeezing up between their toes, thrilling with the electricityof clean-washed nature, and the little girls rather wished they could gobarefooted, too, as, indeed, some of the more sensible did.
A lithe young man with climbers on his legs walked up a telephone pole bythe roadside to make some repairs to the wires, which had been whippedinto a "cross" by the wind of the storm and the lashing of the limbs ofthe roadside trees. He had tied his horse to a post up the road, and wasrunning out the trouble on the line, which was plentifully in evidencejust then. Wind and lightning had played hob with the system, and the linerepairer was cheerfully profane, in the manner of his sort, glad by reasonof the fire of summer in his veins, and incensed at the forces of naturewhich had brought him out through the mud to the Woodruff District to dothese piffling jobs that any of the subscribers ought to have known how todo themselves, and none of which took more than a few minutes of his timewhen he reached the seat of the difficulty.
Jim Irwin, his school out for the day, came along the muddy road with twoof his pupils, a bare-legged little boy and a tall girl with flaxenhair--Bettina Hansen and her small brother Hans, who refused to answer toany name other than Hans Nilsen. His father's name was Nils Hansen, andHans, a born conservative, being the son of Nils, regarded himself asrightfully a Nilsen, and disliked the "Hans Hansen" on the schoolregister. Thus do European customs sometimes survive among us.
Hans strode through the pool of water which the shower had spreadcompletely over the low turnpike a few rods from the pole on which thetrouble shooter was at work, and the electrician ceased his labors andrested himself on a cross-arm while he waited to see what theflaxen-haired girl would do when she came to it.
Jim and Bettina stopped at the water's edge. "Oh!" cried she, "I can't getthrough!" The trouble shooter felt the impulse to offer his aid, butthought it best on the whole, to leave the matter in the hands of the lankschoolmaster.
"I'll carry you across," said Jim.
"I'm too heavy," answered Bettina.
"Nonsense!" said Jim.
"She's awful heavy," piped Hans. "Better take off your shoes, anyhow!"
Jim thought of the welfare of his only good trousers, and saw that Hans'suggestion was good; but a mental picture of himself with shoes in handand bare legs restrained him. He took Bettina in his arms and went slowlyacross, walking rather farther with his blushing burden than was strictlynecessary. Bettina was undoubtedly heavy; but she was also wonderfullypleasant to feel in arms which had never borne such a burden before; andher arms about his neck as he slopped through the pond were curiouslythrilling. Her cheek brushed his as he set her upon her feet and felt,rather than thought, that if there had only been a good reason for it,Bettina would have willingly been carried much farther.
"How strong you are!" she panted. "I'm awful heavy, ain't I?"
"Not very," said Jim, with scholastic accuracy. "You're just right. I--Imean, you're simply well-nourished and wholesomely plump!"
Bettina blushed still more rosily.
"You've ruined your clothes," said she. "Now you'll have to come home withme and let me--see who's there!"
Jim looked up at the trouble shooter, and went over to the foot of thepole. The man walked down, striking his spurs deep into the wood forsafety.
"Hello!" said he. "School out?"
"For the day," said Jim. "Any important work on the telephone line now?"
"Just trouble-shooting," was the answer. "I have to spend three hourshunting these troubles, to one in fixing 'em up."
"Do they take much technical skill?" asked Jim.
"Mostly shakin' out crosses, and puttin' in new carbons in the arresters,"replied the trouble man. "Any one ought to do any of 'em with fiveminutes' instruction. But these farmers--they'd rather have me drive tenmiles to take a hair-pin from across the binding-posts than to do itthemselves. That's the way they are!"
"Will you be out here to-morrow?" queried the teacher.
"Sure!"
"I'd like to have you show my class in manual training something about thetelephone," said Jim. "The reason we can't fix our own troubles, if theyare as simple as you say, is because we don't know how simple they are."
"I'll tell you what I'll do, Professor," said the trouble man. "I'll bringa phone with me and give 'em a lecture. I don't see how I can employ thecompany's time any better than in beating a little telephone sense intothe heads of the community. Set the time, and I'll be there with bells."
Bettina and her teacher walked on up the shady lane, feeling that they hada secret. They were very nearly on a parity as to the innocence of soulwith which they held this secret, except that Bettina was much moresingle-minded toward it than Jim. To her he had been gradually attainingthe status of a hero whose clasp of her in that iron-armed way wasmysteriously blissful--and beyond that her mind had not gone. To Jim,Bettina represented in a very sweet way the disturbing influences whichhad recently risen to the threshold of consciousness in his being, andwhich were concretely but not very hopefully embodied in Jennie Woodruff.
Thus interested in each other, they turned the corner which took them outof sight of the lineman, and stopped at the shady avenue leading up toNils Hansen's farmstead. Little Hans Nilsen had disappeared by the simplemethod of cutting across lots. Bettina's girlish instinct called forsomething more than the casual good-by which would have sufficedyesterday. She lingered, standing close by Jim Irwin.
"Won't you come in and let me clean the mud off you," she asked, "and giveyou some dry socks?"
"Oh, no!" replied Jim. "It's almost as far to your house as it is home.Thank you, no."
"There's a splash of mud on your face," said Bettina. "Let me--" And withher little handkerchief she began wiping off the mud. Jim stooped topermit the attention, but not much, for Bettina was of the mold of womenof whom warriors are born--their faces approached, and Jim recognized acrisis in the fact that Bettina's mouth was presented for a kiss. Jim metthe occasion like the gentleman he was. He did not leave her stung byrejection; neither did he obey the impulse to respond to the invitationaccording to his man's instinct; he took the rosy face between his palmsand kissed her forehead--and left her in possession of her self-respect.After that Bettina Hansen felt, somehow, that the world could not possiblycontain another man like Jim Irwin--a conviction which she still cherisheswhen that respectful caress has been swept into the cloudy distance of awoman's memories.
Pete, Colonel Woodruff's hired man, was watering the horses at the troughwhen the trouble shooter reached the Woodruff telephone. CountySuperintendent Jennie had run for her father's home in her littlemotor-car in the face of the shower, and was now on the bench where onceshe had said "Humph!" to Jim Irwin--and thereby started in motion thefactors in this story.
"Anything wrong with your phone?" asked the trouble man of Pete.
"Nah," replied Pete. "It was on the blink till you done something down theroad."
"Crossed up," said the lineman. "These trees along here are somethingfierce."
"I'd cut 'em all if they was mine," said Pete, "but the colonel set 'emout, along about sixty-six, and I reckon they'll have to go ona-growin'."
"Who's your school-teacher?" asked the telephone man.
The county superintendent pricked up her ears--being quite properlyinterested in matters educational.
"Feller name of Irwin," said Pete.
"Not much of a looker," said the trouble shooter.
"Nater of the sile," said Pete. "He an' I both worked in it together tillit roughened up our complexions."
"Farmer, eh?" said the lineman interrogatively. "Well, he's the firstfarmer I ever saw in my life that recognized there's education in
thetelephone business. I'm goin' to teach a class in telephony at theschoolhouse to-morrow."
"Don't get swelled up," said Pete. "He has everybody tell them young onesabout everything--blacksmith, cabinet-maker, pie-founder, cookie-cooper,dressmaker--even down to telephones. He'll have them scholars figurin' ontelephones, and writin' compositions on 'em, and learnin' 'lectricity from'em an' things like that"
"He must be some feller," said the lineman. "And who's his star pupil?"
"Didn't know he had one," said Pete. "Why?"
"Girl," said the trouble-shooter. "Goes to school from the farm where theWestern Union brace is used at the road."
"Nils Hansen's girl?" asked Pete.
"Toppy little filly," said the lineman, "with silver mane--looks likeshe'd pull a good load and step some."
"M'h'm," grunted Pete. "Bettina Hansen. Looks well enough. What abouther?"
Again the county superintendent, seated on the bench, pricked up her earsthat she might learn, mayhap, something of educational interest.
"I never wanted to be a school-teacher as bad," continued the shooter oftrouble, "as I did when this farmer got to the low place in the road withthe fair Bettina this afternoon when they was comin' home from school. Thewater was all over the road----"
"Then I win a smoke from the roadmaster," said Pete. "I bet him it wouldoverflow."
"Well, if I was in the professor's place, I'd be glad to pay the bet,"said the worldly lineman. "And I'll say this for him, he rose equal to theemergency and caved the emergency's head in. He carried her across thepond, and her a-clingin' to his neck in a way to make your mouth water.She wasn't a bit mad about it, either."
"I'd rather have a good cigar any ol' time," said Pete. "Nothin' but ayaller-haired kid--an' a Dane at that. I had a dame once up at SpiritLake----"
"Well, I must be drivin' on," said the lineman. "Got to get up a lecturefor Professor Irwin to-morrow--and maybe I'll be able to meet thatyaller-haired kid. So long!"
The county superintendent recognized at once the educational importance ofthe matter, when one of her country teachers adopted the policy of callingin everybody available who could teach the pupils anything special, andconverting the school into a local Chautauqua served by local lecturers.She made a run of ten miles to hear the trouble shooter's lecture. She sawthe boys and some of the girls give an explanation of the telephone andthe use of it. She heard the teacher give as a language exercise the nextday an essay on the ethics and proprieties of eavesdropping on partylines; and she saw the beginning of an arrangement under which the boys ofthe Woodruff school took the contract to look after easily-remedied linetroubles in the neighborhood on the basis which paid for a telephone forthe school, and swelled slightly the fund which Jim was accumulating forgeneral purposes. Incidentally, she saw how really educational was thework of the day, and that to which it led.
She had no curiosity to which she would have confessed, about therelations between Jim Irwin and his "star pupil," that youngBrunhilde--Bettina Hansen; but her official duty required her to observethe attitude of pupils to teachers--Bettina among them. Clearly, Jim waslooked upon by the girls, large and small, as a possession of theirs. Theycompeted for the task of keeping his desk in order, and of dusting andtidying up the schoolroom. There was something of exaltation of sentimentin this. Bettina's eyes followed him about the room in a devotional sortof way; but so, too, did those of the ten-year-olds. He was loved, thatwas clear, by Bettina, Calista Simms and all the rest--an excellent thingin a school.
All the same, Jennie met Jim rather oftener after the curious conversationbetween those rather low fellows, Pete and the trouble shooter. As autumnapproached, and the time came for Jim to begin to think of his trip toAmes, Colonel Woodruff's hint that she should assume charge of the problemof Jim's clothes for the occasion, came more and more often to her mind.Would Jim be able to buy suitable clothes? Would he understand that heought not to appear in the costume which was tolerable in the WoodruffDistrict only because the people there were accustomed to seeing himdressed like a tramp? Could she approach the subject with any degree ofsafety? Really these were delicate questions; and considering the factthat Jennie had quite dismissed her old sweetheart from the list ofeligibles--had never actually admitted him to it, in fact--they assumedgreat importance to her mind. Once, only a little more than a year ago,she had scoffed at Jim's mention of the fact that he might think ofmarrying; and now she could not think of saying to him kindly, "Jim, youreally must have some better clothes to wear when you go to Ames!" Itwould have been far easier last summer.
Somehow, Jim had been acquiring dignity and unapproachability. She mustsidle up to the subject. She did. She took him into her runabout one dayas he was striding toward town in that plowed-ground manner of his, andgave him a spin over to the fair grounds and two or three times around thehalf-mile track.
"I'm going to Ames to hear your speech," said she.
"I'm glad of that," said Jim. "More of the farmers are going from thisneighborhood than ever before. I'll feel at home, if they all sit togetherwhere I can talk at them."
"Who's going?" asked Jennie.
"The Bronsons, Con Bonner and Nils Hansen and Bettina," replied Jim."That's all from our district--and Columbus Brown and probably others fromnear-by localities."
"I shall have to have some clothes," said Jennie.
Jim failed to respond to this, as clearly out of his field. They werepassing the county fair buildings, and he began expatiating on the kind ofcounty fair he would have--a great county exposition with the schools asits central thought--a clearing house for the rural activities of all thecountry schools.
"And pa's going to have a suit before we go, too," said Jennie. "Here aresome samples I got of Atkins, the tailor. Which would be the most becomingdo you think?"
Jim looked the samples over carefully, but had little to say as to theiradaptation to Colonel Woodruff's sartorial needs. Jennie laid great stresson the excellent quality of one or two samples, and carefully specifiedthe prices of them. Jim exhibited no more than a languid and politeinterest, and gave not the slightest symptom of ever having consideredeven remotely the contingency of having a tailor-made suit. Jennie sidledcloser to the subject.
"I should think it would be awfully hard for you to get fitted in thestores," said she, "you are so very tall."
"It would be," said Jim, "if I had ever considered the matter of looksvery much. I guess I'm not constructed on any plan the clothingmanufacturers have regarded as even remotely possible. How about thiscounty fair idea? Couldn't we do this next fall? You organize theteachers----"
Jennie advanced the spark, cut out the muffler and drowned the rest ofJim's remarks in wind and dust.
"I give it up, dad," said she to her father that evening.
"What?" queried the colonel.
"Jim Irwin's clothes," she replied. "I think he'll go to Ames in adisgraceful plight, but I can't get any closer to the subject than I havedone."
"Oh, then you haven't heard the news," said the colonel. "Jim's going tohave his first made-to-measure suit for Ames. It's all fixed."
"Who's making it?" asked Jennie.
"Gustaf Paulsen, the Dane that's just opened a shop in town." "A Dane?"queried Jennie. "Isn't he related to some of the neighbors?"
"A brother to Mrs. Hansen," answered the colonel.
"Bettina's uncle!"
"Ratherly," said the colonel jocularly, "seeing as how Bettina's Mrs.Hansen's daughter."
Clothes are rather important, but the difference between a suit made byAtkins the tailor, and one built by Gustaf Paulsen, the new Danishcraftsman, could not be supposed to be crucially important, even whendesigned for a very dear friend. And Jim was scarcely that--of course not!Why, then, did the county superintendent hastily run to her room, and cry?Why did she say to herself that the Hansens were very good people, andwell-to-do, and it would be a fine thing for Jim and his mother,--and thencry some more? Colonel failed to notice Jennie's unceremonious retirem
entfrom circulation that evening, and had he known all about what took place,he would have been as mystified as you or I.