"Probably," said I. "You'd hardly expect the Eckstroms to tackle the job!" That night we began by consulting Bert. Bert is one of the best men I know, and he applies the latest methods to growing cauliflowers; but he's a New England farmer, none the less, and he has the true "rural mind." "'Vocational education!'" he exclaimed. "We got more education than we kin afford now. Taxes are way up, an' the school appropriation's the biggest one we have--$19,000, to only $7,000 for the roads! And then you talk about more! We got along pretty well without it so far." "Have you, though?" said Stella. "You've got a high school, but how many boys have you got in it?" "I dunno," said Bert. "That's it. You don't know. You don't know anything about what your schools are doing. You must be on the school committee!" Bert grinned at this. "No, I ain't," he said, "but I guess I'm ez good ez them that are. They do say Buckstone--you know, the man who runs the meat market--engages teachers on their looks." "Not a bad idea," said Stella; "looks mean a lot to children." "Not the kind Buckie's after, I reckon," said Bert. "But you two go run your farm an' don't worry about this town. We'll git along." Bert spoke good naturedly, but we felt, none the less, as if he were rebuking us. "He thinks we are butting in," said Stella, as we walked home. "I suppose you have to live in a New England town thirty years before you are really a citizen. Well, I'm getting my mad up. Let's butt!" We next consulted Mrs. Pillig on the subject, and found her as stiffly opposed to vocational education as Bert, but on entirely different grounds. "I don't want my boy educated as if he wa'n't as good as anybody else's," she said. "Just because I'm poor is no reason why my boy shouldn't be fitted to go to college same as young Carl Swain." Carl Swain was the son of the village bank president. He, I happened to know, had been obliged to go to Phillips Andover for a year after his graduation from our high school before he could get into college. "In the first place," I answered, "your high school doesn't fit for college now. In the second place, is Peter going to college?" "Of course he ain't," said Mrs. Pillig. "Then why not educate him in some way that will really fit him to make a better living, and be a better man?" said Stella. "I want he should have what the rest have," the mother stoutly maintained. Stella shook her head. "It's hopeless," she whispered. I mentioned the matter next to Mr. Swain, when I was in the bank. He, too, was a true New Englander, of a different class from Bert, but with the fundamental conservatism--to give it the pleasantest name possible. "There's too much fol-de-rol in the school now," he said. "If they'd just try to teach 'em Greek and Latin and the things you need for a liberal education and the college entrance examinations, I wouldn't have had to send my boy to Andover."