FOLKS FROM DIXIE
whose front room no Sunday before had seen untenanted. Mr. Taft was there, and also one who came early and stayed late,—Mr. Dunkin. The younger men thought that he was rather overplaying his rôle of school trustee. He was entirely too conscientious as to his duty to Miss Callena. What the young beaux wanted to know was whether it was entirely in his official position that he sat so long with Miss Callena that first Sabbath.
On Monday morning the school opened with great éclat. There were exercises. The trustee was called upon to make a speech, and, as speech-making is the birthright of his race, acquitted himself with credit. The teacher was seen to smile at him as he sat down.
Now, under ordinary circumstances a smile is a small thing. It is given, taken, and forgotten all in a moment. At other times it is the keynote to the tragedy or comedy of a life. Miss Callena's smile was like an electric spark setting fire to a whole train of combustibles. Those who saw it marvelled and told their neighbours, and their neighbours asked them what it meant. Before night, that smile and all the import it might carry was the town's talk.
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