Smith School was in the midst of the Alabama cotton-belt.

"Better go," he had counselled, sententiously. "Might learn something
useful down there."

She had been not a little dismayed by the outlook, and had protested
against his blunt insistence.

"But, John, there's no society--just elementary work--"

John had met this objection with, "Humph!" as he left for his office.
Next day he had returned to the subject.

"Been looking up Tooms County. Find some Cresswells there--big
plantations--rated at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Some
others, too; big cotton county."

"You ought to know, John, if I teach Negroes I'll scarcely see much of
people in my own class."

"Nonsense! Butt in. Show off. Give 'em your Greek--and study Cotton. At
any rate, I say go."

And so, howsoever reluctantly, she had gone.

The trial was all she had anticipated, and possibly a bit more. She was
a pretty young woman of twenty-three, fair and rather daintily moulded.
In favorable surroundings, she would have been an aristocrat and an
epicure. Here she was teaching dirty children, and the smell of confused
odors and bodily perspiration was to her at times unbearable.