child in the school. Miss Bayley assured herself that she mustn’t forget that, not for one moment, if she wanted to stay, and, oh, how she did want to stay and get acquainted with the wonderful mountains, and the Martins, and maybe even with the Indians who lived down in the creek-bottom!

All this she thought as she walked up the little lane toward the old log schoolhouse.

CHAPTER FIVE
THE WOODFORD SCHOOLHOUSE

Mr. Sethibald Martin advanced with what he believed to be a dignified stride. Without removing his hat, he said, “This here is Miss Josephine Bayley, I take it—her as has credentials to teach correct speakin’ and figurin’.”

A voice from the vehicle was heard. “You’d better look at ’em, Sethibald, to make sure. I don’t want no teacher that can’t learn my Jessica correct speakin’, such as will fit her for the high sphere she is to fill as the daughter of a sheep-king.” The speech had been planned, that the new teacher might at once be impressed with the importance of the Archers in that mountain community.

The stubby gentleman seemed actually to puff up a bit, “as a toad might,” the newcomer found herself thinking, but, remembering his present mission, he explained the duties and requirements of the position, then added, as he glanced almost scornfully at the silent, listening group of four children and a burro, “It sure is onfortunate. Miss Bayley, that the pupils from these here parts are so no-account, my own Jessica bein’ exceptionated.”

His glance turned with pride to the snub-nosed child in the buggy. Then, in a whispered aside: “It’s lucky for you that you’ve got one promisin’ pupil like my daughter, Miss Bayley. ’Twould be dull work teachin’ if you didn’t have nothin’ but dumb young ’uns like those Pine Tree Martins.” He paused, seeming to expect comment. This, then, was Miss Bayley’s moment for being diplomatic.

“I am sure that I shall find your little daughter a very receptive pupil, Mr. Archer,” she said graciously. This time it was certain that Mr. Sethibald had puffed. He had never heard the word “receptive” before, but it had a most complimentary sound.

“Yes, ma’am, Miss Bayley, you’ll find the little sheep-princess all that an’ more, much more, ma’am.” He was unctuously rubbing his hands as he spoke. Then going to the side of the vehicle and holding out a bediamonded hand, he added, “Come now, Jessica, darlin’, and meet the new teacher, her as is goin’ to teach you lots of nice things.”

He lifted the small girl to the ground, and Miss Bayley advanced, her hand held out, but the little “sheep-princess” drew back and clung to her father.

The teacher found herself comparing this lack of manners with the natural graciousness of Carolina, but the father evidently considered his daughter’s behavior as being praiseworthy.

“Shy little thing,” he commented in another of his quite audible asides. “Not bold like that Carry Martin.”

Then the unexpected happened. The little girl referred to darted forward with catlike swiftness. “My name is not Carry Martin,” she cried. “It’s Carolina, and my folks are—” She was drawn back and quieted by poor Dixie, who looked her misery. Teacher, quite at a loss what to say, glanced at the shy and model Jessica at that moment and saw her sticking out her tongue and tilting her nose at the Martins.

Miss Bayley sighed. There were evidently snags ahead, but Mrs. Archer was speaking. “Sethibald,” she said, with a desire to impress the new teacher with her own great importance, “it’s time now that you were a-drivin’ me over to Genoa, where I have to speak in front of a mothers’ meetin’ on how to bring up the young.” Then, turning to Miss Bayley, she added condescendingly, “Me and you’ll be great friends, I’m sure, bein’ as we’re both sot on upliftin’ folks in this here neighborhood from shiftlessness and ignorance.”

Before the astonished young teacher could reply, the stubby, reddish gentleman had climbed up on the front seat, and the restive white horses had started off down the pine-edged lane at a brisk speed, and Josephine Bayley, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, led the way into the large bare room of the old schoolhouse, where she was to spend many a day finding new problems and new pleasures. There were ten pupils in all. Two of them, Mercedes and Franciscito Guadalupe, had but recently come to that mountain country from Mexico.

Their father was the new overseer at the Archer ranch, and as yet they had not learned one word of English.

They were brightly dressed, dark-skinned little creatures, and each time that the new teacher spoke to them, their reply was the same, “Muchas gracias, Senorita,” which sounded very polite, but how was Josephine Bayley to teach them reading and spelling if neither knew the language of the other?

Two of the remaining pupils were equally hopeless, being the most forlorn little mites, children of a trapper who lived somewhere over toward Lake Tahoe, but, as Miss Bayley was to find, these pupils only came now and then, when their trapper-father could spare time to bring them, one in front and one back of him, on his horse.

Maggie and Millie Mullet were twins, aged six years, and Miss Bayley found as the weeks went by that although, after an hour of earnest effort, she might teach them to spell such words as “cat,” “bat,” “rat,” “mat,” when questioned the next day their minds were as blank as though they had never heard the words.

The tenth pupil was a very large boy, sixteen years of age, who was the only son of the burly blacksmith over at Woodford’s. He studied diligently, and when he once learned a thing he seemed never to forget it, and so of him Miss Bayley had a little more hope. However, his father, the powerful Ira Jenkins, Senior, thought “larnin’” unnecessary, but the mother, having learned to read, pored over novels, even when preparing meals, and she had decided that her overgrown son should be a preacher like the one who came once a month from Genoa and held “meetin’s” in the parlor at the inn.

As Miss Josephine Bayley looked over her little class that first morning, she felt desperately at a loss to know how to begin. Each child, it seemed, was studying something different from all the others, and, to add to her discomfort, the new teacher realized that the eyes of Jessica Archer, which were like her father’s, were watching her every move as though she had been admonished by her elders to observe and report all that happened.

The one bright spot was the corner where the wide-awake, intelligent young Martins sat, and Josephine Bayley found herself actually glad that they were “blue-blooded.”

Just as the new teacher was becoming almost panicky at the newness of everything, the slim, freckled hand of Dixie Martin appeared on high, and when Miss Bayley nodded, that small maiden arose, and, going to the desk on the platform, she said softly, “Please, teacher, we usually begin with singing. We all know the ‘Good-Morning’ song. I’ll lead if you want me to; I often do.”

“Oh, I’d be ever so grateful if you would.”

And so Dixie turned around and began to sing, in a clear, bird-like voice, a simple little melody that the older pupils knew and sang with her. There were four stanzas, and when the song was finished, the hand of Jessica Archer went up, and, rising, she said that as she was the smartest pupil in the school, she was always asked to