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128 "Go to school, Isidro," said the Maestro, when he was through, in a voice so weak that the boy looked up quickly, wondering whether everyone was ill that fine, fragrant morning. "Tell Señor Abada to take charge till I come."

The Maestro felt the necessity of some deep, careful thinking. For certainly, of all the difficulties which, in his two years' career, he had alertly fought and conquered, none had ever confronted him of nature so delicate.

It's always when you think that you have at last mastered the problem of this life and evolved a system that promises smooth going the rest of the way that the skies tumble down upon you.

Thus it was with the Maestro. Just when he had brought the school system of his pueblo to the point where, he fondly dreamed, he could sit back and watch it run along the nickel-plated tracks that he had so carefully laid, there came the washout and the promise of wreck.

The blow was a hard one, and for a while, very much in contradiction to his custom, the Maestro buried himself in thought of past achievements and his heart softened toward himself in a great burst of self-compassion.