said that he didn t remember where he had got it mrs implied that had given it to him herself insisted that he had stolen it from a farmer s overcoat � which mrs raged was obviously a lie he had become drunk had driven him home deposited him and on the porch never before had her boy been shrieked mrs when she owned well maybe once or twice i ve on his breath she also with an air of being only too exact granted that sometimes he did not come home till morning but he couldn t ever have been for he always had the best excuses the other boys had tempted him to go down the lake by or he had been out in a machine that ran out of gas anyway never before had her boy fallen into the hands of a woman what do you suppose miss could design to do with him insisted mrs was puzzled gave it up went on this morning when she had faced both of them had confessed that all of the blame was on because the teacher � his own teacher � had dared him to take a drink had tried to deny it then mrs then that woman had the to say to me what purpose could i have in wanting the filthy to get drunk that s just what she called him � i ll have no such nasty language in my house i says and you pretending and pulling the wool over people s eyes and making them think you re educated and fit to be a teacher and look out for young people s morals � you re w� o main street n any street i i says i let her have it good i wa n t going to from my duty and let her think that decent folks had to stand for her vile talk purpose i says purpose ill tell you what purpose you had ain t i seen you making up to everything in that d waste time and pay attention to your impertinence ain t i seen you showing off your legs with them short skirts of yours trying to make out like you was so girlish and la de da running along the street was very sick at this version of s youth but she was as mrs hinted that no one could tell what had happened between and before the drive home without exactly describing the scene by her power of imagination the woman suggested dark country places apart from the and rude and dance steps in the barn then madness and hateful conquest was too sick to interrupt it was who cried oh for god s sake quit it i you haven t any idea what happened you haven t given us a single proof yet that is anything but a rattle i haven t well what do you say to this i come straight out and i says to her did you or did you not taste the had and she says i think i did take one made me she said she owned up to that much so you can imagine does that prove her a asked don t you never use a word like that again the outraged well does it prove her to be a bad woman that she took a taste of i ve done it myself that s different not that i approve your doing it what do the tell us strong drink is a but that s entirely different from a drinking with one of her own pupils yes it does bad was silly but as a matter of fact she s only a year or two older than and probably a good many years younger in experience of vice that s � not � true she is plenty old enough to corrupt him the job of was done by town five years ago main street mrs did not rage in return suddenly she was hopeless her head drooped she patted her black kid gloves at a thread of her faded brown skirt and sighed he s a good boy and awful affectionate if you treat him right some thinks he s terrible wild but that s because he s young and he s so brave and truthful � why he was one of the first in town that wanted to for the war and i had to speak real sharp to him to keep him from running away i didn t want him to get into no bad influences round these � and then mrs rose from her recovered her pace then i go and bring into my own house a woman that s worse when all s said and done than any bad woman he could have met you say this woman is too young and inexperienced to corrupt well then she s too young and inexperienced to teach him too one or t other you can t have your cake and eat it so it don t make no difference which reason they fire her for and that s practically almost what i said to the school board have you been this story to the members of the school board i certainly every one of em and their wives i says to them tain t my affair to decide what you should or should not do with teachers i says and i ain t to dictate in any way shape manner or form i just want to know i says whether you re going to go on record as keeping here in schools among a lot of innocent boys and girls a woman that drinks curses uses bad language and does such dreadful things as i wouldn t lay tongue to but you know what i mean i says and if so i ll just see to it that the town about it and that s what i 