# Honor Bright

Extracted from Harper's magazine, V.131 1915, pp. 351–361. Accompanying illustrations by Worth Brehm may be omitted.
Honor Bright
BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON
THE front door of Wendell Phillips School opened with a bang, and Master Michael Foley struck out for the gate at a record-breaking pace. Miss Ferguson, the principal, particularly sensitive to door-banging, flung up her window in time to observe not only the flight of the eloping pupil, but the precipitate exit of Miss Honor Bright, the youngest of her teaching staff, in hot pursuit. Any one with a drop of sporting blood would have watched the contest with delight; and yet only disdain, anger, and horror were depicted on Miss Ferguson's severe countenance.
Master Michael gained the street safely, but, hearing his pursuer close upon him, grasped a tree-box and began dancing behind it while he weighed the chances of further flight. Miss Bright, evidently familiar with such tactics, caught him in one of his feints, affixed her hand firmly to his collar and marched him before her to the school-house.
Miss Ferguson, satisfied with her observations, closed her window and retired to the hall in time to see Miss Bright deposit the prisoner in the cloak-room, in which, it may be said, he had been immured for the heinous crime of casting a paper wad in a rude and insolent manner at a model boy who had been graciously permitted to clean the blackboard as a reward of merit.
Having disposed of Michael, Miss Bright was about to return to her room, where her pupils had abandoned themselves to hilarity in her absence, when the principal's voice arrested her.
"I'm greatly surprised, Miss Bright, that you should so far forget your dignity as to run—run—from your room and into the street after one of your pupils. I witnessed the whole occurrence, and in thirty years of teaching I never before saw a teacher so shamelessly forget herself. You may report to me when school is dismissed."
"Yes, Miss Ferguson," replied Honor, meekly.
It is not pleasant to be obliged to walk away from a person who stands rigidly at attention, watching you. Miss Bright felt the principal's eyes boring into her back. The sensation was disagreeable, but by the time the door of her room closed Honor was smiling again.
"Honor bright" is a colloquialism recognized by reputable dictionaries as an adverbial expletive of affirmation, and Miss Bright's father had named her Honor to please his sense of humor. He was a Presbyterian minister whose own name was Quintius Curtius, so it was not surprising that he held views on the subject of nomenclature. Honoria is, of course, the obvious feminine. Honoria seemed to him English and highfalutin'; moreover, the extra vowels spoiled the joke. To send a girl out into the world as Honor Bright not only tickled him, but the name would, he argued, be an incentive to straightforwardness and veracity in the possessor.
Honor had decided early in life that it is better to laugh than to cry. The year she graduated from high school her parents were victims of a typhoid epidemic that swept the small Ohio River town where she was born. As the administrator of the Rev. Quintius Curtius's estate didn't sympathize with Honor's ambition to spend her two thousand dollars of life insurance on education, she bade him keep the money at interest and addressed herself to the business of working her way through the State university. This was not the easiest possible thing in a small town, and there were times when Honor found it difficult to keep smiling. She clerked in a store on Saturdays, typed lectures for the faculty, and ran the kitchen of the girl's boarding-house until her junior year, when she found more agreeable employment in tutoring. These labors did not prevent her graduating with credit or being voted the most popular girl in her class.
When you said Honor Bright, both town and gown smiled. There was something about Honor that was provocative of smiles—kind, friendly, approving smiles.
Honor was so busy! Her industry was one of the many absurd things about her. She not only worked hard, but when she played she put her soul into it. She was a star performer in the gymnasium, and could stand on her head, walk on her hands, and do amazing things on a horizontal bar.
After a year at the State Normal School she taught one winter in her native town, decided that the local field was too limited, and, nothing better offering, accepted a position in the schools of Kernville, the Gem City of the Sycamore, and was given power of life and death over a miscellaneous collection of eight-year-olds in Wendell Phillips School.
When Honor had been a small cog in the big machine for a month, Gale, the superintendent, asked Miss Ferguson how the new teacher was getting on. "Miss Bright is capable," Miss Ferguson replied, frostily, "but she lacks the poise desirable in teachers. Her ideas of discipline are very lax. She pays little attention to our system, and constantly persists in introducing ideas of her own. I fear the university spoiled her for elementary work."
"Well, results are what we want," remarked Gale. "She has talked to me about some of her ideas and I'm disposed to give her pretty free rein. There's always the chance," he added, with a mollifying smile, "that some of our old ideas may not be the best."
The Gem City's schools were full of Miss Fergusons who bitterly resented the new superintendent's indifference to the sacred system. Since his advent the previous year, Gale had labored assiduously, but without success, to modify the system. There were enough Miss Fergusons to thwart him; and there was always the board. The members of the board were solid citizens long undisturbed in their positions, chiefly because the politicians had never thought school-board jobs worth fighting for. In the Gem City of the Sycamore it was considered a great honor to sit on the school board, and incidentally it gave the prosperous members an excellent chance to protect the taxpayers from foolish expenditures for new fads in education. At the same time they basked in the bright effulgence of their self-sacrificing civic virtue. The board hadn't changed in ten years, and it seemed unlikely that anything would ever jar its equanimity. The commissioners had been basely deceived in Gale. He had new ideas and talked seriously of making the schools a social force. This was rank heresy. The board distrusted Gale and meant to get rid of him at the earliest opportunity.
Shortly before school closed Miss Bright visited the recalcitrant Michael in the cloak-room, and as a result of a few minutes' conversation he appeared shamefacedly on the platform and apologized for his evil conduct. The gong sounded, and Honor dismissed her class with the usual evolutions, and repaired to the principal's room.
She smiled cheerfully at several of her sister teachers who guardedly and tremulously watched her on her way to the scaffold. They liked Honor, though they were disposed to hold her responsible for the disordered state of Miss Ferguson's nerves, which made trouble for the whole staff.
Miss Ferguson's wrath had not cooled, and she not only repeated her rebuke in sharper tones, but admonished Miss Bright as to other sinful infractions of the rules.
"In all my experience as a principal I have never found it necessary to ask the removal of a teacher, but I have felt from the opening of school that your temperament unfits you for teaching. You are a new-comer in town and unfamiliar with our school traditions; but I've hoped that with experience you would see the importance of bringing more dignity to your work. That Foley boy is wholly insubordinate and is constantly causing trouble on the grounds. You will write a letter to his parents immediately, warning them that he will be suspended the very next time he is guilty of an infraction of the rules."
HE GRASPED A TREE-BOX WHILE HE WEIGHED THE CHANCES OF FURTHER FLIGHT
"But, Miss Ferguson, he isn't a bad boy! He's the brightest pupil I have! He's mischievous, but so are all healthy children of eight. I haven't seen many of the parents of my children yet, but I shall send a note to Michael's father and ask him to come to the school. He hasn't any mother, I believe."
"That's unfortunate, of course. But his father," said Miss Ferguson, scornfully, "is a low politician of the worst type. I've never seen the man, but he's constantly in the newspapers."
"Please let me work on Michael's case a little longer without threats. I don't like threatening parents."
"You will find, Miss Bright, that indulgence in these cases only makes trouble for yourself and brings our discipline into disrepute. I've watched that Foley boy all year, and he's not only disobedient, but insolent. Only yesterday I caught him making faces at you while the lines were forming."
Instead of being outraged, Honor laughed—a spontaneous, merry laugh that caused Miss Ferguson to stare in mute amazement.
"He probably thinks I'm a brute and not the indulgent person you make me out! But I'm sorry I ran after him. I know it wasn't proper or becoming; but I thought it unwise to allow him to sneak out of the cloak-room in that fashion."
"Another thing," continued Miss Ferguson, austerely, "the superintendent is likely to visit the building any day, and it would be most deplorable if he should find any of my rooms in disorder. You must remember that I have my own reputation to sustain, and some of us who have been long in the schools find Mr. Gale very critical—quite unsympathetic, in fact."
At this point a short, stocky man entered the room and began examining the radiators—an intrusion that clearly added to the principal's annoyance.
"Plumber!" she ejaculated, rapping sharply on the desk.
"Yes, madam?" The plumber rose from his knees and snapped the spring on a tape-line.
"It's against the rules for workmen to visit these rooms during the school hours."
"Beg your pardon, madam."
He started for the door, carrying his derby loftily as though it were a sacred emblem. As he passed the principal's desk he ducked his head in a jerky bow and said, "Beg your pardon," again. He vanished noiselessly with a long stride that his short stature made amusingly incongruous. His walk, the funny little bow, his round, smooth-shaven, humorous face, and his reverential attitude toward his hat wakened in Honor a strong impulse to giggle. The interruption had caused Miss Ferguson to lose the thread of her argument. She bent her severe gaze upon Honor for a moment as she collected her thoughts.
"I shall not report this occurrence to the superintendent, but hope my own warning will be sufficient to prevent a repetition of your error. That will do for the present."
"Thank you, Miss Ferguson."
Honor walked out, feeling again the principal's eyes following her. Returning to her room, she began clearing her desk, when a knock on the open door called her attention to the gentleman with the derby, who approached timidly in response to her cheery "Come in."
"I beg your pardon," he said.
"Oh, you may go ahead with these radiators if you like; you won't bother me a bit."
"Well, I've already got what I was looking for. I just wanted to speak to you a minute. I'm Mickey Foley's father. I guess this is his room?"
He glanced about as though seeking signs that would confirm the suspicion that this was indeed the spot lately hallowed by his son's presence.
"Well, yes; it's very much his room," said Honor, smiling as she noted the points of resemblance between the plumber and his son. He declined a chair, but stood with his arm (supporting the derby) on the edge of her desk.
"I heard the old lady dressing you down; I guess Mickey's a good deal of trouble, all right. But you don't need to bother; I'll have some conversation with Mickey to-night and he won't bother you any more. You see, there's just the two of us; and I guess I haven't been watching the lad close enough. You don't need to suspend him. He likes you and brags about you all the time. He wouldn't do anything to make you trouble."
"He might do much better," said Honor, feeling that candor was required here. "I'd appreciate it if you'd talk to him. His trouble is that he's so much brighter than most of the other children that he has plenty of time for foolishness."
Foley nodded solemnly, but his eyes brightened at the compliment. "I guess Mickey's smart enough, all right. You won't need to bother about him; I'll fix him. If he cuts any more monkey-shines, you let me know. I'm much obliged to you. I couldn't help hearing the old lady calling you down. I wouldn't have my boy the cause of making you trouble. I'm mighty sorry."
"Please don't be hard on Michael! He's the most interesting child in his class. Just a little friendly talk will do the business."
"I'll have a few words with him. You won' t have any more trouble with Mickey. Thank you, and beg your pardon."
He ducked his head and strode out with his ridiculous long step. When he was half-way to the door he hesitated, then returned to the desk. "I haven't got anything to do to the plumbing; I was just measuring the radiators."
This in a half-whisper, with the derby held to his face, caused Honor to smile; and he grinned responsively, as though measuring radiators was one of the most amusing things imaginable.
That night as Honor read the evening paper at her boarding-house her eyes caught his name in a head-line, and she read the subjoined article with interest:
    Tom Foley, the Little Boss of the Fourth, is much in evidence at Democratic headquarters these days. As the campaign gathers headway, he seems to be taking himself seriously as a candidate for the State senate. In the list of speakers' appointments given out yesterday his name is down for fifty engagements throughout the county. As the Little Boss has heretofore been known only as a silent worker, his determination to join the noble army of spellbinders has aroused much curiosity.
Miss Ferguson had called Michael's father a low politician. Honor's ideas of bosses were derived largely from newspaper cartoons depicting gross monsters with piratical mustaches, clad in loud checks and smoking huge cigars. Clearly, Foley was a variation from the familiar type. His smile, like the young Michael's, was wholly engaging, and argued for a conscience on pretty good terms with itself.
Another bit of news explosively head-lined announced that three members of the school board whose terms were expiring were for the first time to meet with opposition. The attitude of the board in refusing the use of school property as playgrounds had, it seemed, aroused antagonism, and the labor organizations were backing an independent school ticket. Moreover, the Germans were in arms because the board had, in a fit of economy, eliminated German from the primary grades. Gale was also to be an issue, it appeared, as some of his radical changes had not met with the board's favor, and the belligerent forces were rallying to his support.
The next morning a sister teacher, to whom Honor mentioned the impending war on the old board, stared at her in mute astonishment.
"You'd better not meddle with those things, Miss Bright. It would be a pity if the old members should be defeated. We are all vitally interested in their re-election."
Honor turned away impatiently. She had already decided that one year in Kernville would be enough, and she was laying her plans to obtain a position in the schools of the capital the next year.
"Please, Miss Bright!"
She was writing the day's work on the blackboard when she became conscious that Michael Foley was standing beside her. He carried under his arm a small blue box which he extended, grinning broadly. He was dressed in a new suit of clothes. His hair had been cut since his last appearance, and was brushed till it shone.
"Miss Bright, I'm sorry I caused you so much trouble yesterday," he mumbled, pivoting on one foot. "Here's some roses I brought for your desk."
He waited while she opened the box, which contained a bunch of violets—not roses. From Michael's frank curiosity in the contents, it was clear that the purchase had not been effected by him personally.
"This is fine of you, Michael; how did you ever come to think of it?"
"Well, I guess dad thought of it first. He thought you might like 'em. He said the Foley family got to square itself."
"Well, it was all square, anyhow, Michael. What's the matter with your hand?"
"Nothin'; only I punched Jerry Corrigan's face comin' through the alley; he thought there was candy in the box."
The knuckles he exhibited hinted at the employment of considerable violence in the defense of the violets. "And, Miss Bright, Jerry won't be here this morning; he went home to tell his ma," Michael added, with a contemptuous curl of the lip.
It was her plain duty to reprimand him for punching Jerry's head; and yet how could she, with the cause of battle lying fragrantly before her! She merely expressed regret that the encounter had been necessary and repeated her thanks cordially.
Michael was so conspicuously virtuous that day that the sins of the rest of the class loomed blackly in contrast. Honor put an unusual amount of snap into her work, and things moved merrily. With the superintendent's permission, she had substituted for the system's outline an objective method of teaching arithmetic which she had found set forth in a school journal. She had demonstrated to her own satisfaction that it brought better results with half the wear and tear of the old method. She finished the lesson in a glow just before the afternoon recess, when a frantically waving hand called for attention.
"Please, Miss Bright, you told us you'd stand on your head some day if we was good."
A chorus of astonished "oh's!" greeted this. A few days before, in a dark moment when things were at sixes and sevens, Honor had declared that she'd be standing on her head pretty soon if they didn't keep better order. She was about to correct the false impression conveyed by the child's reminder when she was arrested by a sharp squeak.
"What was that?" she demanded.
Michael Foley's seat-mate complained that Michael had pinched his ear.
"Aw, he said you couldn't do it!" protested Michael.
"Well, you needn't have pinched his ear. Please behave yourself, Michael."
The continued restlessness was indicative of a desire that she settle the point thus acutely at issue by furnishing ocular proof of her prowess.
Honor had never taken a dare—a fact that had, in the earlier half of her twenty-two years, got her into much trouble, owing to the joy of her boy playmates in beguiling her to climb telegraph-poles and walk fences. She glanced at the clock, took the cushion from her chair and dropped it on the platform, seized a stout piece of cord confiscated that morning in the enforcement of discipline, and tied it round her skirts. She eyed the cushion critically and glanced again at the clock. It lacked three minutes of recess. The children pressed forward in the aisles, watching breathlessly. Calculating the distance carefully, she threw herself forward on her hands, got her balance instantly, and then let herself down slowly until her head rested on the cushion.
Awe held the young spectators. Teacher had met the challenge. There she stood, indubitably, upon her head. To their young imaginations she seemed to hold the position for hours.
They were so absorbed that the soft opening of the door and the entrance of Miss Ferguson, followed by the superintendent of the Gem City's schools, passed unnoticed. Then Honor dropped upon her feet with a bang and turned a crimson face to the visitors. Miss Ferguson, overcome by mingled feelings of horror and humiliation, extended her hands helplessly to the superintendent and fled. The gong sounded and the children marched out. When Honor returned to her room she found Gale sitting at her desk, examining some cards and money-boxes she had been using in her arithmetic class.
"I'm so sorry!" she began instantly. "We were waiting for the gong and I'd said something the other day about standing on my head, and—and—well, I didn't want them to think I couldn't!"
The superintendent laughed. "Miss Bright, please don't trouble about that! I'd give a year's salary if I could do it! I was just looking at these things. They're using that idea in a good many places. How does it work?"
"Splendidly. It seems a pity to waste so much time teaching numbers when this way is so simple."
"I'm afraid you've spent your own money for these supplies. Please send me a memorandum of the amount. I was wondering," he went on, meditatively, "if you won't show how it's done next Saturday morning, before all the teachers of your grade. We'll have a discussion of it and see if some of the older teachers can find a flaw in it."
"Oh, they can and will!" exclaimed Honor, quickly.
Gale chuckled. "So you're finding the system hard to live with, are you?" he asked, ruefully. "Well, you may feel better to know that I am, too. By the way, Miss Ferguson complains of your lax discipline. What are your views on that subject?"
"She's right, according to her ideas; and I'm ashamed to annoy her so much. But my youngsters do their work and keep cheerful. I can't see anything to be gained by nagging them all the while. I suppose I could put in most of my time scolding."
"I doubt very much whether you could!" he replied, with a faint smile. "I'll spend the next hour with you and watch your work. And—I'll take the liberty of saying to Miss Ferguson that you have promised to conduct your classes hereafter in the upright manner prescribed in the manual."
The following week Honor received visits from the mothers of nearly every child in her room; two fathers also made bold to present themselves. A teacher who could stand on her head was a novelty of whom the patrons of Wendell Phillips School felt they should be proud.
Politics shook Kernville to its base that fall. The Republican and Democratic organs, locked in a death struggle on the tariff and the freedom of the Filipinos, discreetly ignored the fight on the school board. The Evening Telegram, however, unawed by the prominence of the commissioners, devoted columns daily to exposing the inadequacy and incompetence of Kernville's schools. "The system in vogue here," it declared, "is antiquated and parsimonious. The children of the Gem City of the Sycamore deserve the best the taxpayers can give them. Superintendent Gale seems to be helpless in the hands of the old fogies who have so long dominated our schools. Scrape the moss off the school-houses! Take the schools out of the hands of the old stiff-necked clique, and give them back to the people!"
The playground question was not neglected, the board's attitude in refusing the use of school-yards to the children of the poor being characterized from day to day as autocratic and brutal. Then out of a clear sky the Telegram sprang a circumstantial story of fraud in a plumbing contract. A new heating system had been installed in all the school buildings the previous summer, and the Telegram charged fraud on the contractor's part. Figures were given to prove that the amount of radiation furnished was just half what the public had paid for. Honor, deeply interested in the fight, accounted now for the visit of the Little Boss to Wendell Phillips School on the afternoon of the day she had outraged the proprieties by sprinting out of the school-yard in pursuit of the Little Boss's son.
When the campaign neared its climax late in October, the Wendell Phillips Mothers' Club announced a public meeting in a church that had hospitably opened its doors for its conferences after the commissioners' refusal of the school-house. All the teachers of Wendell Phillips School were invited.
Miss Ferguson called her teaching staff together to warn them against falling into the trap which she informed them had been devised for their undoing.
"We must maintain an absolutely neutral position in these matters. The members of the board are among our first citizens, who have given their time and thought to the best interests of our schools for years. It would be base ingratitude for any teacher to encourage the efforts of a few politicians to drive them from the position they have filled so long and honorably. The opposing candidates are utterly unknown men—one of them is a mechanic who knows nothing of the needs of the schools—a labor agitator and trouble-maker."
"I don't believe that is quite fair, Miss Ferguson," Honor ventured. "If you mean John Arnold, it's true he's a mechanic, and a good one. His little girl is in my room, and I've met and talked to him and found him unusually intelligent."
The others gathered about Miss Ferguson's desk listened breathlessly. It was inconceivable that any one should dare to controvert any of Miss Ferguson's assertions, much less question her authority. They waited anxiously for the principal's reply.
"I believe, Miss Bright, that I have nothing to add to what I have said already," she replied, coldly.
It was growing dark when Honor left the school. At the gate Foley emerged from the shadows.
"Just passing along and thought I might meet you," he said, with a flourish of the derby. "I hope Mickey isn't causing any more trouble?"
"Oh, he's doing beautifully! We're getting on quite famously."
"That's all right. I've been talking things over with him a good deal, and he means to be square. He's a well-meaning kid—just a little skittish sometimes. Beg your pardon, but I'm going your way—"
"Oh, certainly," murmured Honor as he caught step with her.
It was apparent before he spoke that he was going her way, and the idea was not disagreeable. It was a real adventure to be walking beside the Little Boss, candidate for the State senate and, according to the Republican Journal, an unreliable and dangerous character. He chuckled when presently she spoke of the plumbing scandal.
"We've got it on 'em, all right. They'll say to-morrow that I'm sore because I didn't get the contract myself. Well, I was, all right. Of course the old guys on the school board didn't know they were getting stung; but that's their trouble. They're so afraid of having to pay a little taxes that they screw everything down till the valves crack."
He made light of his candidacy for the State senate when she referred to it.
"Well, I didn't want that job—not particularly—but they've rubbed it in so much about my being a crook that I thought I'd give 'em a chance to down me. I'm going to give 'em a run for their money—I beg your pardon!" he exclaimed hurriedly, as though remembering that he was speaking to an educator of youth. "By the way, I don't want you to answer if you'd rather not, but about this school row, what's the real dope? I don't know anything about such things, but are the schools rotten or not?"
"The methods are old—that's all. The superintendent would be all right if the board gave him a chance. The teachers are all scared to death, and that's another bad thing. The commissioners meddle with things that ought to be left to Mr. Gale."
"I just wanted to know," Foley replied, slowly. "I didn't start that fuss, but I guess I'll have to butt in a little. They're always bragging about keeping the schools out of politics, when they've built up a little machine of their own that's hard to beat. I guess it ought to have a jolt. Am I right?" he demanded.
"I think you are, Mr. Foley," said Honor, smiling at his intonation. "Of course I'm not much interested personally, because I don't expect to be here another year; but for the good of the town I hope the jolt will be a hard one."
"Don't pack your things yet," he said, holding the derby tenderly against his shoulder at the boarding-house door. "It's a good town and getting better. Hang on; you never can tell what 'll happen. About Mickey—you're sure he's doing better?"
"Nobly! I'm not having the slightest trouble with Michael now."
He planted the derby on his head after another flourish and hurried away. Honor watched him for a moment before closing the door. The Little Boss was a new species. His deferential manner, his quiet earnestness, argued against his possessing the wily, vicious qualities the Journal ascribed to him. And he was fond of his young Michael; this, Honor thought, was greatly in his favor.
The next evening the meeting of the Mothers' Club of Wendell Phillips School was under way when she reached the church. Many of the mothers had taken their husbands and children with them and the room was crowded. Honor found a seat near the door just as the chairman introduced the first speaker—the candidate for school commissioner of whom Miss Ferguson had spoken so bitterly.
What they all wanted, he said, was the best education they could give their children. He named the old commissioners, and dwelt upon the fact that they were all prosperous men, and that only one of them had ever had a child in the Kernville schools.
"They want us to be satisfied with anything they choose to give us, while they send their own children to private schools. It's not a square deal. All over the country school-houses are being used for social purposes by the neighbors, and why shouldn't they be? Why shouldn't our boys have the right to play in school-grounds instead of in the street and on the railroad tracks?"
He had been investigating the methods employed in other towns the size of Kernville, and read letters in proof of his assertion that the local schools were behind those of other cities.
The chairman then said that she had a surprise in store for the audience; that a man everybody in the Fourth Ward knew and admired was present and would express his sentiments on the school question.
"I have the honor to introduce the Honorable Thomas Foley."
The hat which Honor associated inevitably with Michael's father was now observable moving down the aisle on the arm of the Honorable Thomas. There was a great clapping of hands as the Little Boss appeared on the platform. With his right arm enfolding the derby protectingly, he began to speak in a conversational tone.
"I suppose I oughtn't to be here, for they say they don't want any politics in school business. I'm here this evening because I've decided there ought to be some. [Applause.] They say I'm a machine politician and a bad lot generally. Well, I didn't come here to brag about myself. Sometimes the machine does bad things, and when it does I'm just as sorry as anybody. I can tell you this, you folks that live around here and know me, that I intend to stay right on in the old Fourth Ward, and that I'm not going to do anything so rotten bad that the neighbors will turn their backs on me. I don't want people to point to my boy and say Mickey Foley's father's a crook and they don't want their kids to play with him. [Applause.] If I'm as bad as they say I am, I ought to be in jail. I've been thinking about this school business and I've just dropped in to tell you I'm against the old crowd." [Great applause.] He looked with sudden interest at his hat, waved it in acknowledgment of the hand-clapping, and concluded with, "Well, I guess that's about all from me."
Several other short speeches followed, and then, after a parley with the club secretary, the chairman said:
"One of the teachers of the Wendell Phillips School has kindly come to this meeting. I'm not going to call her name, but a good many of us know her, and if she feels like saying anything I'm sure we'll all be mighty glad to hear from her."
There was a craning of necks; several children in Honor's neighborhood rose and pointed her out. Honor, flushing scarlet, waited, hoping the chair would accept and respect her silence. It was bad enough to have ignored Miss Ferguson's warning and attended the meeting, without adding to her offense by lifting her voice against the powers. Vigorous applause gave her time for reflection. Several boys called her name loudly. Very likely she would lose her position; but these were simple, kindly people, and they were right in their protest. She had never taken a dare!
When she rose she was greeted with the noisiest applause of the evening.
"I didn't come here to say anything, but just to listen. I haven't had much experience as a teacher, but I believe the schools of Kernville can be made better. I think the superintendent could make your schools the best in the state if he had a chance. I hope you're all going to help give him the chance." And then, suddenly very much at ease, and smiling, she said, "I don't believe I can improve the last remark made by Mr. Foley—'I guess that's about all from me'!"
YOU'RE VERY NAUGHTY," SAID HONOR, SEVERELY
At a special meeting of the board held at noon the next day the superintendent was instructed to demand Miss Bright's resignation. Gale refused. She was an efficient and successful teacher, he declared, and he would not punish any employee in his charge for attending a meeting that had been marked by perfect order and propriety.
The board, afraid of the consequences of removing the superintendent, let the matter stand; but Honor became immediately an issue of the campaign. Even the partisan papers were obliged to take note of the demand of the commissioners for her discharge, and the Telegram espoused her cause in an editorial headed, "Why Gag the School-Teachers?"
Honor declined requests for her photograph to be reproduced in the Telegram, and continued her work at Wendell Phillips, where her associates, cautioned by the principal, showed so markedly their distrust of her that she ceased joining them with her luncheon at the noon recess and ate alone in her room.
In spite of the arduous duties of the campaign—including his "speeches," never more than fifty words in length, which the Journal ridiculed daily—the Little Boss found it possible several times a week to walk home with Honor. He talked politics chiefly, and it was a pleasant and novel experience to learn from him of strategic movements that never got into the newspapers. He was putting in his best licks, he told her, to push the independent school ticket through. He consulted her about a parade he was planning of all the school children in the city on the Saturday afternoon before election day, and he asked Honor to furnish inscriptions for the banners, which he said must be numerous and "snappy."
This demonstration was the biggest hit of the campaign. It was preceded by a band and the entire police force of Kernville. The participation of the police evoked a roar from the Journal, which declared that Foley had gone into the school fight merely to bolster up the failing strength of the Democratic machine. Wendell Phillips was represented by the largest delegation contributed by any of the schools. The Little Boss's son, much swollen with pride, bore a banner (chosen for him by his discriminating parent) inscribed, "Pay Our Teachers Living Wages."
Honor's meetings with Foley did not pass unobserved; in fact, she made no attempt to avoid observation. She merely walked out of the school gate, and there, quite by chance it might have appeared to any one, the Little Boss rose up out of nowhere and walked away with her.
Miss Ferguson, who had been ignoring Honor as much as possible since the deadlock between the board and the superintendent over the question of discharging her, accosted Honor in the hall late one afternoon. The principal's calm, assured manner poorly concealed her intense agitation.
"Miss Bright, I feel that as a friend I should tell you that that man Foley, who's been seen walking home with you, is a saloon-keeper! If you must see him, I think it would be more prudent if you met him elsewhere."
Honor flushed, murmured, "Thank you," and hurried on. It was disagreeable news, if true, and she had no grounds for denying it. The next morning's Journal jubilantly trumpeted the same information. Foley, while ostensibly a plumber by occupation, was conducting a saloon at Harney and Dodge Streets; and in proof of this a picture of the place was offered in evidence. That evening Honor resolved to have a look at "Shiel's Bar," as the Journal described the saloon.
As she passed the corner rapidly the door opened and, lifting her eyes, she caught a glimpse of Foley standing behind the cigar-counter with the unfailing derby on the back of his head, evidently engaged in studying a number of papers lying open before him. Beyond him shone the mirror and fixtures of the bar—a pleasant background against which to see a man who has been walking home with you! One glimpse was enough; she hurried on with mounting indignation. Manifestly his enemies had scored heavily in uncovering Foley's connection with a saloon, and it was quite clear that as a self-respecting young woman she could not suffer him longer to hang about the school gate waiting for her.
The next afternoon she took the precaution to leave the school-house by a side gate, to avoid the possibility of meeting him. When she came out into her usual course again she found the Little Boss sedately waiting. He grinned cheerfully as she approached.
"Miss Bright, please let me speak to you a moment," he began hastily, moving along beside her. "I know why you dodged me and I don't blame you. I just want to tell you about that saloon business. It's all in the Telegram to-night. I never owned that place or any other saloon. Old Pat Shiel was a good friend of mine even if he did run a saloon. He died last summer, and somebody had to take charge of things for his widow, and they put me in as administrator. I wouldn't have taken it if it hadn't been to help out Mrs. Shiel and her kids. I'm going to sell it out as soon as I can. It's all the woman's got. I knew you wouldn't like that story. I'm mighty sorry"; and then he added, "I beg your pardon."
"I'm glad to know this," said Honor, quietly, "and I appreciate your telling me.
He turned toward her with his amusing smile and, lowering his voice, said, "We had that fake worked off on the Journal on purpose."
"I don't believe I see the point," Honor confessed.
"Well, you see, it's this way. They hadn't been hitting me hard enough to warm up our side, and about this time in a campaign you've got to get some punch into things. To show me up as a booze-dealer looks like a knock-out. When we spring the answer and show that I'm only helping out a poor widow with four children they wobble back on the ropes. We framed the whole business at headquarters and then let the Journal shoot it off as a big scoop. I guess maybe you think it's pretty low politics," he added, humbly, "but—"
"You're very naughty," said Honor, severely, "just as Michael is disposed to be sometimes. He can reach across the aisle and twitch a little girl's pigtail and look as innocent as a lamb when the girl screams."
"He's been doing that!" ejaculated Foley.
"Oh, not lately!" Honor hastened to assure him. "I meant years and years ago—before his reformation."
On the night of election-day Honor made up a party at the boarding-house to go down-town to watch the returns flashed on a screen in front of the Telegram office. She was not interested a particle in what forty precincts in Syracuse had done, or whether Tammany had put through its candidate for governor; but by eleven o'clock the news of the local fight began to crystallize. This was the first stirring report:
    Returns at this hour indicate that two of the independent candidates for school commissioner have been elected.
The crowd greeted this with much cheering, which was intensified a few minutes later when the three independent candidates were declared to be safe. Then this cryptic statement followed:
    Complete returns from 60 precincts in Bliss County: For state senator, Foley, Dem., leads Smythe, Rep., by 1800.
While the crowd cheered, a picture of Foley was flashed, and the uproar was intensified. His face wore his familiar smile; he looked more than ever like Michael, Honor thought.
Vague reports from California held the screen, and then an automobile appeared at the edge of the crowd and cries went up for Foley. The crowd turned its back upon highly unimportant returns from Texas and began demanding that Foley should speak. Under an arc-lamp at the corner Honor now saw the Little Boss standing up in the car, tipping his derby and shaking his head in reply to the demand for a speech. As the noise continued and grew he raised the derby to command silence.
"I'm mighty glad to see you all feeling so good," he said, looking out over the tightly packed crowd. "I'm feeling pretty good myself. [Laughter.] They've been saying around Kernville for a good while that I'm a crook. I've given 'em a chance to prove it. Have they made good? [A wild blur of no's.] I haven't any hard feelings against anybody. All I want is to get for Bliss County and Kernville everything the folks is entitled to. And listen! When you all come up to the legislature I want you to tell the man at the door to call me out right away, because you're dead sure Tom Foley wants to see you."
Smythe concedes Foley's election
struck the screen as he waved his hat and dropped from sight.
The Little Boss no longer haunted the school gate, but boldly presented himself three evenings a week at Honor's boarding-house. There was something that pleased Honor deeply in his humility over his success.
"When you've had your head punched as much as I have you don't just naturally swell up over a little thing like that," he said a few evenings after the election. "But I'm going to try to get some things done for our town. I'm reading up on city government, and I guess there's some new ideas we ought to have for Kernville. If it won't bother you too much, I wish you'd look at some of these books I've been getting about the way to run towns like this. I'd like to know what you think about 'em."
Michael, a willing delivery agent, began leaving sundry and divers packages at the door—offerings which preluded long conferences between Foley and Honor on weighty matters. The fact that the newly elected school commissioners took office on the first of January, and a suspicion that Honor had influence with the superintendent and in other high quarters, contributed to a kindlier attitude toward her at the school-house.
Foley called on New- Year's eve with a white carnation in his buttonhole. He and Honor were on such terms now that she openly chaffed him on occasions. He had been busy since election straightening out his business, and he confided to her that he had secured a couple of good contracts that would keep his shop busy while he wore his senatorial toga at the capital. He had been concerned for Michael's safety during his absence, but had arranged to place him with a neighbor.
"And I'll keep an eye on him, too," said Honor.
"I guess you see enough of him in school," Foley replied, lifting the precious derby from the hat-rack preparatory to his usual abrupt exit. "You know, Miss Bright, I want to give the lad a good chance. I want to see him get somewhere; I want—I want—to send him to college!"
"That's what I hoped you meant to do," replied Honor, from the parlor door. "He's worth it. There's the making of a fine man in Michael."
The Little Boss glanced into his hat to hide his embarrassment. His affection for the boy had touched Honor from the beginning of their acquaintance. And there was beyond question something very appealing in the Little Boss. He was only thirty, she had learned, and he had been thrown on the world to shift for himself at fourteen. His achievements were, on the whole, amazing; and his ambitions as he modestly confessed them were highly creditable.
"I'm going down to the capital to-morrow. You see it's a new game and I want to get the hang o' things before the session opens."
"I suppose it's best to do that. Well, I'll miss you while you're away."
He looked at her quickly, then regarded his hat fixedly.
"I forgot to tell you," Honor remarked, "that Mr. Gale has offered me another place. He wants me to be his secretary and work at the school office."
"I hope you won't take it!" said Foley in a tone that implied that some great indignity lay behind the superintendent's compliment. "It wouldn't be square to the folks around Wendell Phillips. Why, you're the most popular teacher they ever had over there."
"Oh, far from that!" she protested.
"And besides"—he referred again to the interior of his hat and then met her brown eyes with his candid blue ones—"and besides, I was going to offer you a job myself. You see, Miss Bright," he went on, hastily, "ever since that day the old lady up at the school jumped you for chasing little Mickey—"
Honor was somewhat astonished a few moments later to find herself standing on his derby.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1947, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 76 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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