This, however, was not the sole reason. It was the new sort of work which commanded the attention of Raymond and Newton as they entered. This morning, Jim had arranged in various sorts of dishes specimens of grain and grass seeds. By each was a card bearing the name of the farm from which one of the older boys or girls had brought it. "Wheat, Scotch Fife, from the farm of Columbus Smith." "Timothy, or Herd's Grass, from the farm of A. B. Talcott." "Alsike Clover, from the farm of B. B. Hamm." Each lot was in a small cloth bag which had been made by one of the little girls as a sewing exercise; and each card had been written as a lesson in penmanship by one of the younger pupils, and contained, in addition to the data above mentioned, heads under which to enter the number of grains of the seed examined, the number which grew, the percentage of viability, the number of alien seeds of weeds and other sorts, the names of these adulterants, the weight of true and vitalized, and of foul and alien and dead seeds, the value per bushel in the local market of the seeds under test, and the real market values of the samples, after dead seeds and alien matter had been subtracted. "Now get busy, here," cried Jim Irwin. "We're late! Raymond, you've a quick eye--you count seeds--and you, Calista, and Mary Smith--and mind, next year's crop may depend on making no mistakes!" "Mistakes!" scoffed Mary Smith, a dumpy girl of fourteen. "We don't make mistakes any more, teacher." It was a frolic, rather than a task. All had come with a perfect understanding that this early attendance was quite illegal, and not to be required of them--but they came. "Newt," suggested Jim, "get busy on the percentage problems for that second class in arithmetic." "Sure," said Newt. "Let's see.... Good seed is the base, and bad seed and dead seed the percentage--find the rate...." "Oh, you know!" said Jim. "Make them easy and plain and as many as you can get out--and be sure that you name the farm every pop!" "Got you!" answered Newton, and in a fine frenzy went at the job of creating a text-book in arithmetic. "Buddy," said Jim, patting the youngest Simms on the head, "you and Virginia can print the reading lessons this morning, can't you?" "Yes, Mr. Jim," answered both McGeehee Simms and his sister cheerily. "Where's the copy?" "Here," answered the teacher, handing each a typewritten sheet for use as the original from which the young mountaineers were to make hectograph copies, "and mind you make good copies! Bettina Hansen pretty nearly cried last night because she had to write them over so many times on the typewriter before she got them all right." The reading lesson was an article on corn condensed from a farm paper, and a selection from _Hiawatha_--the Indian-corn myth. "We'll be careful, Mr. Jim," said Buddy. Half past eight, and only half an hour until school would officially be "called."