They sold this breakfast food to thousands of farmers, to give them health and strength to harvest another crop of oats.

Thus he "benefited the community going and coming." What! Should he not advertise this mutual-benefit commodity wherever he pleased, and especially among the farmers?
What aristocratic notion could prevent him?
It was a mighty good thing for the farmers to be reminded, by means of the signs on their barns and fences, of the things they needed in daily life.
If the young man at Elmhurst would like to be of public service he might find some better way to do so than by advancing such crazy ideas.

But this, continued the Representative, was a subject of small importance.
What he wished especially to call their attention to was the fact that he had served the district faithfully as Representative, and deserved their suffrages for renomination.

And then he began to discuss political questions in general and his own merits in particular, so that Kenneth and Mr.Watson, disgusted at the way in which the Honorable Erastus had captured the meeting, left the school-house and indignantly returned to Elmhurst.
"This man Hopkins," said Mr.Watson, angrily, "is not a gentleman.

He's an impertinent meddler." "He ruined any good effect my speech might have created," said Kenneth, gloomily.
"Give it up, my boy," advised the elder man, laying a kindly hand on the youth's shoulder.