The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1902-03-27
B AC K TO
THE SOIL
BY E. B. CLARk.

EORCE SINGLETON was country
IT born. When he was little more
than a baby his father, wealthy farm
err, shipped him off to a city boarding
school. From that time until he grad
uated at the big city university George
knew little of country life except
through his vacations. 1t is rather
hard thing to do to make ones hero
narrow sort of a chap, but if the line
of truth is to be hewed to, it must
he said that in some ways George
Singleton's views of life were not more
than foot wide.
Among other things that city school
life had done for this farmers son
was to give him a prejudice against
country girls. George professed to
see something quite different IN the
rosy-cheeked girl, who, swinging her
books on a strap, cut through the
cornfield to the little schoolhouse at
the crossroads, and the girl who took
her fathers carriage, or, at the very
least, the elevated railroad, and was
rolled away to fashionable seminary.
George did not want to be a snob,
perhaps, but he was one, and the coun-
try girls with whom he associated when
visiting home knew it. They felt a
sort of pity for this young fellow
whose vision was so limited. George,
while somewhat remarkable student,
was dense enough in one way not to
be able to perceive that there was
acumen enough in these country girls
TO enable them to size him up pretty
thoroughly. He had yet to learn that
keen wits were not necessarily assoc
ciated with the rustic of silk skirts.
George Singleton's father had been
so proud of the progress that his son
had made in his studies that it was
almost too late that he came to know
that the boy had failed utterly to learn
some of the higher lessons Of life that
are not to be found inside book COW
ers. The old gentleman was won't in
the later years to remark that George
knew all about Greek roots, but when
it came to a question of other kinds
of tubers George was not certain
whether the potato ripened under
ground or had to be picked off bush
like a gOoseberry. He wanted his son
to go farming, even if he had given
him the finest education that money
could buy. But George wouldn't have
it that way He wanted to be pro-
fessor of ancient languages, and, as
George was anything but fool as far
as book learning went, he was offered
the position of instructor of Greek in
the great institution of learning by
the lake where he had imbibed knowl-
edge.
Instructor Singleton was looking
forward to the day when he would have
right to tack professor on to his
name. 1t is perhaps needless to say
in the light of these later-day ways
that the university was a coed affair
George had mixed classes, males and
females. As he looked along the line Of
fresh girl faces which showed above
the front row in the recitation-room he
found himself dropping back into his
old habit of comparing the girl pupils
whom he knew to be city bred with
those who came from the country.
George was forced to admit against
his own inclination that there wasn't
much difference in the line of intelIi-
gence between those who came from
Washington avenue and those who
came from Just beyond the bridge on
the creek road" He did. however, flat
ter himself that with scarcely a men
tai effort he could tell by a certain
Savior faire" manner those of his pu-
pills who had been brought up amid
what George called the refinements of
civilization and those who had been
reared where the dust lies thick in
the country roads and where the
sounds of nature take the place of the
rattle of cable cars.
There was Belle Madison. for in
stance, strikingly handsome girl of
10, whose very name had a boulevard
sound it. No one could possibly mis-
take Belle for country girl. She had
a certain something according to the
instructors view of life, that marked
her as child of that part of the great
city where the upper tendon lived.
George Singleton had never taken the
trouble TO look up the dwelling places
of his pupils. He didn't have to. His
insight could never fail him. Now. it
happened that Singleton was only 25
years old. 1t also happened that he
was physically big and good-lookine.
Something else happened which is not
altogether unnatural, perhaps. He be-
gan TO feel deep interest in one of
his pupils. 1t may be needless to say