"I told the girl. No, I never told the kids. The Swedes had sense enough to beat it when she let 'em out for recess. She got fighty over that, and wouldn't let the school out and wait for good weather, so I went out and told the Boyle kids to hit for home. Humpin' cats, _somebody_ had to do something! "So then the Scotch come out strong in the girl, and I made her go home too. If I see 'em in that shack to-morrow, and the weather like it is and like it's going to be, I'll send 'em home again. What in thunder do I care what old Scotty and Jim Boyle says about it? If they want a woman to learn their kids to read, they'd oughta give her a better place than the Whipple shack to keep school in." "They won't," said Belle. "A roof and four walls is all you can expect of them. It's a shame. I expect Mary Hope is tickled to death to be earning the money, too. She was taking music all winter in Pocatello, I heard, and she and her mother saved up the money in nickels--Lord knows how, the way old Scotty watches them!--to pay for the lessons. It's a shame." "What do they do for water? Old Man Whipple always hauled it in barrels when he tried to hold down the camp." Al, tilting back his chair, placidly picking his teeth, spoke for the first time. "I didn't see no water barrel," Tom answered. "I reckon they make dry camp. They had a stove that smoked, and three benches with some kinda shelf for their books, and the girl was using a strip of tar-paper for a blackboard. But there was no water." "Say, what sort of country is this Black Rim, anyway?" Lance studied the end of his cigarette, lifting his left eyebrow just as his father had done five minutes before. "I hope to heck I haven't come home to remodel the morals of the country, or to strut around and play college-young-man like a boob; but on the square, folks, it looks to me as though the Rim needs a lesson in citizenship. It doesn't mean anything in our lives, whether there is a schoolhouse in the country or not. Belle has looked out for us boys, in the matter of learning the rudiments and a good deal besides. Say, Belle, do you know they took my voice and fitted a glee club to it? I was the glee. And a real, live professor told me I had technique. I told him I must have caught it changing climates--but however, what you couldn't give us with the books, you handed us with the quirt--and here and now I want to say I appreciate it." "All right, I appreciate your appreciation, and I wish to heaven you wouldn't ramble all over the range when you start to say a thing. That's one thing you learned in school that I'd like to take outa you with a quirt."