noon
One may argue with a cantankerous judge , but the woman , who like necessity , knows no law , and who is smothering in a flood of perplexities , is beyond reason . Moreover , Jennie dimly saw that what she was doing had the approval of the crowd , and it solved the problem of procedure . There was a little wrangling , and a little protest from Con Bonner , but Jennie ruled with a rod of iron , and adhered to her ruling . When the hearing was resumed after the noon recess , the crowd was larger than ever , but the proceedings consisted mainly in a conference of the principals grouped about Jennie at the big lawyers ' table . They were talking about the methods adopted by Jim in his conduct of the Woodruff school -- just talking . The only new thing was the presence of a couple of newspaper men , who had queried Chicago papers on the story , and been given orders for a certain number of words on the case of the farm-hand schoolmaster on trial before his old sweetheart for certain weird things he had done in the home school in which they had once been classmates . The fact that the old school-sweetheart had kicked a lawyer out of the case was not overlooked by the gentlemen of the fourth estate .