"I don't see much in this county campaign that interests me," he went on--and Jennie Woodruff reddened, while her seasoned father covered his mouth with his hand to conceal a smile. "The politicians come out into the farming districts every campaign and get us hayseeds for anything they want. They always have got us. They've got us again! They give us clodhoppers the glad hand, a cheap cigar, and a cheaper smile after election;--and that's all. I know it, you all know it, they know it. I don't blame them so very much. The trouble is we don't ask them to do anything better. I want a new kind of rural school; but I don't see any prospect, no matter how this election goes, for any change in them. We in the Woodruff District will have to work out our own salvation. Our political ring never'll do anything but the old things. They don't want to, and they haven't sense enough to do it if they did. That's all--and I don't suppose I should have said as much as I have!" There was stark silence for a moment when he sat down, and then as many cheers for Jim as for the principal speaker of the evening, cheers mingled with titters and catcalls. Jim felt a good deal as he had done when he knocked down Mr. Billy's chauffeur--rather degraded and humiliated, as if he had made an ass of himself. And as he walked out of the door, the future county superintendent passed by him in high displeasure, and walked home with some one else. Jim found the weather much colder than it had been while coming. He really needed an Eskimo's fur suit. CHAPTER VII THE NEW WINE