The fact was, every man of them was prepossessed in her favor so soon as he looked into her eyes, and the three bobbed-haired candidates hadn’t a chance, with her on the spot. “But I thought she was a cook!” said one wife when her husband got home from the School Board meeting and told her about the election of the new teacher. “Mrs. Powers told me she got dinner for her one night when she had company.” “I asked Powers about that,” her husband answered. “It seems she just did it to help them out when she first came, while she was looking for a job. Powers said he never tasted such cooking. His wife offered her twenty-five dollars just to stay and cook dinner on Sunday for some guests and she wouldn’t do it.” “Well, I don’t blame her. Mrs. Powers is very unpleasant to get along with, all the maids say. But it does seem strange to hire a cook to teach in the school. I think we’ll send Genevieve to a private school this fall.” “No, we won’t send Genevieve to any private school, not if I have anything to say about it, and I guess I’d have to pay the bills. Not while I’m on the School Board either. How do you think that would make me look?” “You could resign. You could say you didn’t approve of having cooks teach our children.” “Well, I do approve. It’s a pity Genevieve couldn’t learn to cook too. I’ve seen this girl and I want my children under her. I count it a privilege to have them under her. I like her looks. She doesn’t paint her face, nor bob her hair, nor wear clothes way up to her knees. And she doesn’t wear dangle-dangles in her ears, nor pull out her eyebrows. She wears neat, sensible, pretty things and looks like a good girl, and that’s the kind we want our little children under. That Miss Harlow you wanted me to vote for makes eyes at every man that comes near her, married or single. This girl tends to her business and knows what she’s about. I voted for her, and I mean to stick by her. Now! I want it understood that she is _not a cook_. She may know _how_ to cook, but that talk about her being a cook doesn’t go another step from this house! Understand? If it does, there’s going to be a big overhauling somewhere.” “Oh, of course, if you’ve taken her up,” said his wife disagreeably. “It seems she has all the men on her side even if she doesn’t make eyes at them.” “She doesn’t need to. She’s a good girl and she doesn’t want ’em; and that’s the kind the children ought to have.” So Joyce was established in the Primary Department of the Silverton School, under the very immediate supervision of the new superintendent, who paid her marked attention from the first, to her evident embarrassment. Joyce was not averse to having friends, nor to going out and having good times like other girls, but it happened that the very first thing this luckless young man asked her to was a dance, and she had to tell him she didn’t dance.