Jim was in agony 
 
THE 
 
 BROWN MOUSE 
 
 By 
 HERBERT QUICK 
 
 Author of 
 
 ALADDIN & COMPANY, THE BROKEN LANCE 
 ON BOARD THE GOOD SHIP EARTH, ETC. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 
 JOHN A. COUGHLIN 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
COPYRIGHT 1915 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMEAHY 
 
 Of 
 
 Printed in the United States of America 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 BRAUNWORTH & OO. 
 
 BOOK MANUFACTURfRB 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. Y. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I A MAIDEN S "HUMPH!" 1 
 
 II RETERSED UNANIMITY 24 
 
 III WHAT Is A BROWN MOUSE 38 
 
 IV THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL 48 
 
 V THE PROMOTION OF JENNIE 55 
 
 VI JIM TALKS THE WEATHER COLD ... 65 
 
 VII THE NEW WINE 75 
 
 VIII AND THE OLD BOTTLES 89 
 
 IX JENNIE ARRANGES A CHRISTMAS PARTY . . 99 
 
 X How JIM WAS LINED UP Ill 
 
 XI THE MOUSE ESCAPES 122 
 
 XII FACING TRIAL 132 
 
 XIII FAME OR NOTORIETY 147 
 
 XIV THE COLONEL TAKES THE FIELD . . . 164 
 XV A MINOR CASTS HALF A VOTE . . . . 188 
 
 XVI THE GLORIOUS FOURTH 203 
 
 XVII A TROUBLE SHOOTER 218 
 
 XVIII JIM GOES TO AMES 235 
 
 XIX JIM S WORLD WIDEN & ...... 242 
 
 XX THINK OF IT 248 
 
 XXI A SCHOOL DISTRICT HELD UP .... 258 
 
 XXII AN EMBASSY FROM DIXIE 277 
 
 XXIII AND So THEY LIVED 295 
 
THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A MAIDEN S "HUMPH !" 
 
 A FARM-HAND nodded in answer to a ques 
 tion asked him by Napoleon on the morn 
 ing of Waterloo. The nod was false, or the 
 emperor misunderstood and Waterloo was 
 lost. On the nod of a farm-hand rested the 
 fate of Europe. 
 
 This story may not be so important as the 
 battle of Waterloo and it may be. I think 
 that Napoleon was sure to lose to Wellington 
 sooner or later, and therefore the words "fate 
 of Europe" in the last paragraph should be 
 understood as modified by "for a while." But 
 this story may change the world permanently. 
 ,We will not discuss that, if you please. What 
 I am endeavoring to make plain is that this 
 history would never have been written if a 
 
 1 
 
2 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 farmer s daughter had not said "Humph!" to 
 her father s hired man. 
 
 Of course she never said it as it is printed. 
 People never say "Humph !" in that way. She 
 just closed her lips tight in the manner of peo 
 ple who have % great deal to say and prefer 
 not to say it, and I dislike to record this of 
 a young lady who has been "off to school," but 
 truthfulness compels she grunted through 
 her little nose the ordinary "Humph !" of con 
 versational commerce, which was accepted at 
 its face value by the farm-hand as an evidence 
 of displeasure, disapproval, and even of con 
 tempt. Things then began to happen as they 
 never would have done if the maiden hadn t 
 "Humphed !" and this is a history of those hap 
 penings. 
 
 As I have said, it may be more important 
 than Waterloo. Uncle Tom s Cabin was, and 
 I hope I am just beginning, you know to 
 make this a much greater book than Uncle 
 Tom s Cabin. And it all rests on a "Humph I" 
 Holmes says, 
 
 "Soft is the breath of a maiden s Yes/ 
 Not the light gossamer stirs with less,"- 
 
A MAIDEN S "HUMPH!" 3 
 
 but what bard shall rightly sing the importance 
 of a maiden s "Humph !" when I shall have fin 
 ished telling what came of what Jennie Wood 
 ruff said to Jim Irwin, her father s hired man? 
 
 Jim brought from his day s work all the fra 
 grances of next year s meadows. He had been 
 feeding the crops. All things have opposite 
 poles, and the scents of the farm are no excep 
 tion to the rule. Just now, Jim Irwin possessed 
 in his clothes and person the olfactory pole op 
 posite to the new-mown hay, the fragrant but 
 ter and the scented breath of the lowing kine 
 perspiration and top-dressing. 
 
 He was not quite so keenly conscious of this 
 as was Jennie Woodruff. Had he been so, the 
 glimmer of her white pique dress on the bench 
 under the basswood would not have drawn him 
 back from the gate. He had come to the house 
 to ask Colonel Woodruff about the farm work, 
 and having received instructions to take a 
 team and join in the road work next day, he 
 had gone down the walk between the beds of 
 four o clocks and petunias to the lane. Turn 
 ing to latch the gate, lie saw through the dusk 
 the white dress under the tree and drawn by 
 
4 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 the greatest attraction known in nature, had re* 
 entered the Woodruff grounds and strolled 
 back. 
 
 A brief hello betrayed old acquaintance, and 
 that social equality which still persists in theory 
 between the work people on the American 
 farm and the family of the employer. A desul 
 tory murmur of voices ensued. Jim Irwin sat 
 down on the bench not too close, be it ob 
 served, to the pique skirt. . . . There came 
 into the voices a note of deeper earnestness, 
 betokening something quite aside from the rip 
 pling of the course of true love running 
 smoothly. In the man s voice was a tone of 
 protest and pleading. . . . 
 
 "I know you are," said she; "but after all 
 these years don t you think you should be at 
 least preparing to be something more than 
 that?" 
 
 "What can I do?" he pleaded. "I m tied 
 hand and foot. ... I might have . . ." 
 
 "You might have," said she, "but, Jim, 
 you haven t ... and I don t see any pros 
 pects. . . ." 
 
A MAIDEN S "HUMPH!" 5 
 
 "I have been writing for the farm papers," 
 said Jim; "but . . ." 
 
 "But that doesn t get you anywhere, you 
 know. . . . You re a great deal more able and 
 
 intelligent than Ed and see what a fine 
 
 position he has in Chicago. . . ." 
 
 "There s mother, you know," said Jim gently. 
 
 "You can t do anything here," said Jennie. 
 "You ve been a farm-hand for fifteen years 
 . . . and you always will be unless you pull 
 yourself loose. Even a girl can make a place 
 for herself if she doesn t marry and leaves the 
 farm. You re twenty-eight years old." 
 
 "It s all wrong!" said Jim gently. "The 
 farm ought to be the place for the best sort 
 of career I love the soil !" 
 
 "I ve been teaching for only two years, and 
 they say I ll be nominated for county superin 
 tendent if I ll take it. Of course I won t it 
 seems silly but if it were you, now, it would 
 be a first step to a life that leads to some 
 thing." 
 
 "Mother and I can live on my wages and 
 the garden and chickens and the cow," said 
 
6 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 Jim. "After I received my teacher s certifi 
 cate, I tried to work out some way of doing 
 the same thing on a country teacher s wages. 
 I couldn t. It doesn t seem right." 
 
 Jim rose and after pacing back and forth 
 sat down again, a little closer to Jennie. Jen 
 nie moved away to the extreme end of the 
 bench, and the shrinking away of Jim as if he 
 had been repelled by some sort of negative mag 
 netism showed either sensitiveness or temper. 
 
 "It seems as if it ought to be possible," said 
 Jim, "for a man to do work on the farm, or 
 in the rural schools, that would make him a 
 livelihood. If he is only a field-hand, it ought 
 to be possible for him to save money and buy a 
 farm." 
 
 "Pa s land is worth two hundred dollars an 
 acre," said Jennie. "Six months of your wages 
 for an acre even if you lived on nothing." 
 
 "No," he assented, "it can t be done. And 
 the other thing can t, either. There ought to 
 be such conditions that a teacher could make a 
 living." 
 
 "They do," said Jennie, "if they can live at 
 home during vacations. / do." 
 
A MAIDEN S "HUMPH!" 7 
 
 "But a man teaching in the country ought 
 to be able to marry." 
 
 "Marry!" said Jennie, rather unfeelingly, I 
 think. "You marry!" Then after remaining 
 silent for nearly a minute, she uttered the 
 syllable without the utterance of which this 
 narrative would not have been written. "You 
 marry ! Humph !" 
 
 Jim Irwin rose from the bench tingling with 
 the insult he found in her tone. They had been 
 boy-and-girl sweethearts in the old days at the 
 Woodruff schoolhouse down the road, and be 
 fore the fateful time when Jennie went "off to 
 school" and Jim began to support his mother. 
 They had even kissed and on Jim s side, 
 lonely as was his life, cut off as it necessarily 
 was from all companionship save that of his 
 tiny home and his fellow-workers of the field, 
 the tender little love-story was the sole ro 
 mance of his life. Jennie s "Humph !" retired 
 this romance from circulation, he felt. It 
 showed contempt for the idea of his marrying. 
 It relegated him to a sexless category with 
 other defectives, and badged him with the celi 
 bacy of a sort of twentieth-century monk, with" 
 
8 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 out the honor of the priestly vocation. From 
 another girl it would have been bad enough, 
 but from Jennie Woodruff and especially on 
 that quiet summer night under the linden it 
 was insupportable. 
 
 "Good night," said Jim simply because he 
 could not trust himself to say more. 
 
 "Good night," replied Jennie, and sat for a 
 long time wondering just how deeply she had 
 unintentionally wounded the feelings of her 
 father s field-hand; deciding that if he was 
 driven from her forever, it would solve the 
 problem of terminating that old childish love 
 affair which still persisted in occupying a suite 
 of rooms all of its own in her memory; and 
 finally repenting of the unpremeditated thrust 
 which might easily have hurt too deeply so 
 sensitive a man as Jim Irwin. But girls are 
 not usually so made as to feel any very bitter 
 remorse for their male victims, and so Jennie 
 slept very well that night. 
 
 Great events, I find myself repeating, some 
 times hinge on trivial things. Considered 
 deeply, all those matters which we are wont to 
 
A MAIDEN S "HUMPH!" 9 
 
 call great events are only the outward and visi 
 ble results of occurrences in the minds and 
 souls of people. Sir Walter Raleigh thought 
 of laying his cloak under the feet of Queen 
 Elizabeth as she passed over a mud-puddle, and 
 all the rest of his career followed, as the effect 
 of Sir Walter s mental attitude. Elias Howe 
 thought of a machine for sewing, Eli Whitney 
 of a machine for ginning cotton, George Steph- 
 enson of a tubular boiler for his locomotive en 
 gine, and Cyrus McCormick of a sickle-bar, and 
 the world was changed by those thoughts, 
 rather than by the machines themselves. John 
 D. Rockefeller thought strongly that he would 
 be rich, and this thought, and not the Standard 
 Oil Company, changed the commerce and 
 finance of the world. As a man thinketii so 
 is he; and as men think so is the world. Jim 
 Irwin went home thinking of the "Humph I" of 
 Jennie Woodruff thinking with hot waves and 
 cold waves running over his body, and swell 
 ings in his throat. Such thoughts centered upon 
 his club foot made Lord Byron a great sar 
 donic poet. That club foot set him apart 
 
10 THE BKOWN MOUSE 
 
 from the world of boys and tortured him into 
 a fury which lasted until he had lashed society 
 with the whips of his scorn. 
 
 Jim Irwin was not club-footed; far from it. 
 He was bony and rugged and homely, with a 
 big mouth, and wide ears, and a form stooped 
 with labor. He had fine, lambent, gentle eyes 
 which lighted up his face when he smiled, as 
 Lincoln s illuminated his. He was not ugly. 
 In fact, if that quality which fair ladies if 
 they are wise prize far more than physical 
 beauty, the quality called charm, can with pro 
 priety be ascribed to a field-hand who has just 
 finished a day of the rather unfragrant labor 
 to which I have referred, Jim Irwin possessed 
 charm. That is why little Jennie Woodruff 
 had asked him to help with her lessons, rather 
 oftener than was necessary, in those old days 
 in the Woodruff schoolhouse when Jennie wore 
 her hair down her back. 
 
 But in spite of this homely charm of per 
 sonality, Jim Irwin was set off from his fel 
 lows of the Woodruff neighborhood in a man 
 ner quite as segregative as was Byron by his 
 deformity. He was different In local par* 
 
A MAIDEN S "HUMPH !" 11 
 
 lance, he was an off ox. He was as odd as 
 Dick s hatband. He ran in a gang by himself, 
 like Deacon Avery s celebrated bull. He failed 
 to matriculate in the boy banditti which played 
 cards in the haymows on rainy days, told 
 stereotyped stories that smelled to heaven, 
 raided melon patches and orchards, swore hor 
 ribly like Sir Toby Belch, and played pool in 
 the village saloon. He had always liked to 
 read, and had piles of literature in his attic 
 room which was good, because it was cheap. 
 Yery few people know that cheap literature is 
 very likely to be good, because it is old and un 
 protected by copyright. He had Emerson, 
 Thoreau, a John B. Alden edition of Cham 
 bers Encyclopedia of English Literature, some 
 Franklin Square editions of standard poets in 
 paper covers, and a few Ruskins and Carlyles 
 < all read to rags. He talked the book Eng 
 lish of these authors, mispronouncing many of 
 the hard words, because he had never heard 
 them pronounced by any one except himself, 
 and had no standards of comparison. You find 
 this sort of thing in the utterances of self-edu 
 cated recluses. And he had piles of reports of 
 
12 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 the secretary of agriculture, college bulletins 
 from Ames, and publications of the various bu 
 reaus of the Department of Agriculture at 
 Washington. In fact, he had a good library of 
 publications which can be obtained gratis, or 
 very cheaply and he knew their contents. He 
 had a personal philosophy, which while it had 
 cost him the world in which his fellows lived, 
 had given him one of his own, in which he 
 moved as lonely as a cloud, and as untouched of 
 the life about him. 
 
 He seemed superior to the neighbor boys, 
 and felt so ; but this feeling was curiously min 
 gled with a sense of degradation. By every 
 test of common life, he was a failure. His 
 family history was a badge of failure. People 
 despised a man who was so incontestably 
 smarter than they, and yet could do no better 
 with himself than to work in the fields along 
 side the tramps and transients and hoboes who 
 drifted back and forth as the casual market for 
 labor and the lure of the cities swept them. 
 Save for his mother and their cow and garden 
 and flock of fowls and their wretched little 
 rented house, he was a tramp himself. 
 
A MAIDEN S "HUMPH!" 13 
 
 His father had been no better. He had come 
 into the neighborhood from nobody knows 
 where, selling fruit trees, with a wife and baby 
 in his old buggy and had died suddenly, leav 
 ing the baby and widow, and nothing else save 
 the horse and buggy. That horse and buggy 
 were still on the Irwin books represented by 
 Spot the cow so persistent are the assets of 
 cautious poverty. Mrs. Irwin had labored 
 in kitchen and sewing room until Jim had 
 been able to assume the breadwinner s burden 
 which he did about the time he finished the 
 curriculum of the Woodruff District school. 
 He was an off ox and odd as Dick s hatband, 
 largely because his duties to his mother and 
 his love of reading kept him from joining the 
 gangs whereof I have spoken. His duties, his 
 mother, and his father s status as an outcast 
 were to him the equivalent of the Byronic club 
 foot, because they took away his citizenship in 
 Boyville, and drove him in upon himself, and, 
 at first, upon his school books which he mas 
 tered so easily and quickly as to become the 
 star pupil of the Woodruff x District school, and 
 later upon Emerson, Thoreau, Ruskin and tht 
 
14 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 poets, and the agricultural reports and 
 bulletins. 
 
 All this degraded or exalted him to the 
 position of an intellectual farm-hand, with a 
 sense of superiority and a feeling of degrada 
 tion. It made Jennie Woodruff s "Humph!" 
 potent to keep him awake that night, and send 
 him to the road work with Colonel Woodruff s 
 team next morning with hot eyes and a hotter 
 heart. 
 
 What was he anyhow? And what could he 
 ever be? What was the use of his studies in 
 farming practise, if he was always to be an 
 underling whose sole duty was to carry out the 
 crude ideas of his employers? And; what 
 chance was there for a farm-hand to become a 
 farm owner, or even a farm renter, especially 
 if he had a mother to support out of the 
 twenty-five or thirty dollars of his monthly 
 wages? None. 
 
 A man might rise in the spirit, but how 
 about rising in the world? 
 
 Colonel Woodruff s gray percherons seemed 
 to feel the unrest of their driver, for they 
 fretted and actually executed a clumsy pranco 
 
A MAIDEN S "HUMPH!" 15 
 
 as Jim Irwin pulled them up at the end of the 
 turnpike across Bronson s Slew the said slew 
 being a peat-marsh which annually offered the 
 men of the Woodruff District the opportunity 
 to hold the male equivalent of a sewing circle 
 while working out their road taxes, with much 
 conversational gain, and no great damage to 
 the road. 
 
 In fact, Columbus Brown, the pathmaster, 
 prided himself on the Bronson Slew Turnpike 
 as his greatest triumph in road engineering. 
 The work consisted in hauling, dragging and 
 carrying gravel out on the low fill which car 
 ried the road across the marsh, and then watch 
 ing it slowly settle until the next summer. 
 
 "Haul gravel from the east gravel bed, Jim," 
 called Columbus Brown from the lowest spot 
 in the middle of the turnpike. "Take Newt 
 here to help load." 
 
 Jim smiled his habitual slow, gentle smile at 
 Newton Bronson, his helper. Newton was sev 
 enteen, undersized, tobacco-stained, profane 
 and proud of the fact that he had once beaten 
 his way from Des Moines to Faribault on 
 freight trains. A source of anxiety to his 
 
16 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 father, and the subject of many predictions 
 that he would come to no good end, Newton 
 was out on the road work because he was likely 
 to be of little use on the farm. Clearly, New 
 ton was on the downward road in a double 
 sense and yet, Jim Irwin rather liked him. 
 
 "The fellers have put up a job on you, Jim," 
 volunteered Newton, as they began filling the 
 wagon with gravel. 
 
 "What sort of job?" asked Jim. 
 
 "They re nominating you for teacher," re 
 plied Newton. 
 
 "Since when has the position of teacher been 
 an elective office?" asked Jim. 
 
 "Sure, it ain t elective," answered Newton. 
 "But they say that with as many brains as 
 you ve got sloshing around loose in the neigh 
 borhood, you re a candidate that can break the 
 deadlock in the school board." 
 
 Jim shoveled on silently for a while, and by 
 example urged Newton to earn the money 
 credited to his father s assessment for the day s 
 work. 
 
 "Aw, what s the use of diggin into it like 
 
A MAIDEN S "HUMPH!" 17 
 
 this?" protested Newton, who was developing 
 an unwonted perspiration. "None of the others 
 are heatin themselves up." 
 
 "Don t you get any fun out of doing a good 
 day s work?" asked Jim. 
 
 "Fun!" exclaimed Newton. "You re crazy!" 
 
 A slide of earth from the top of the pit 
 threatened to bury Newton in gravel, sand and 
 good top soil. A sweet-clover plant growing 
 rankly beside the pit, and thinking itself per 
 fectly safe, came down with it, its dark green 
 foliage anchored by the long roots which pene 
 trated to a depth below the gravel pit s bottom. 
 Jim Irwin pulled it loose from its anchorage, 
 and after looking attentively at the roots, laid 
 the whole plant on the bank for safety. 
 
 "What do you want of that weed?" asked 
 Newton. 
 
 Jim picked it up and showed him the nodules 
 on its roots little white knobs, smaller than 
 pinheads. 
 
 "Know what they are, Newt?" 
 
 "Just white specks on the roots," replied 
 Newton. 
 
18 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "The most wonderful specks in the world," 
 said Jim. "Ever hear of the use of nitrates to 
 enrich the soil?" 
 
 "Ain t that the stuff the old man used on the 
 lawn last spring?" 
 
 "Yes," said Jim, "your father used some on 
 his lawn. We don t put it on our fields in 
 Iowa not yet ; but if it weren t for those white 
 specks on the clover-roots, we should be obliged 
 to do so as they do back east." 
 
 "How do them white specks keep us from 
 needin nitrates?" 
 
 "It s a long story," said Jim. "You see, be 
 fore there were any plants big enough to be 
 visible if there had been any one to see them 
 the world was full of little plants so small 
 that there may be billions of them in one of 
 these little white specks. They knew how to 
 take the nitrates from the air " 
 
 "Air!" ejaculated Newton. "Nitrates in the 
 air! You re crazy!" 
 
 "No," said Jim. "There are tons of nitrogen 
 in the air that press down on your head 
 but the big plants can t get it through their 
 
A MAIDEN S "HUMPH!" 19 
 
 leaves, or their roots. They never had to learn, 
 because when the little plants bacteria found 
 that the big plants had roots with sap in them, 
 they located on those roots ana tapped them 
 for the sap they needed. They began to get 
 their board and lodgings off the big plants. 
 And in payment for their hotel bills, the little 
 plants took nitrogen out of the air for both 
 themselves and their hosts." 
 
 "What d ye mean by hosts ?" 
 
 "Their hotel-keepers the big plants. And 
 now the plants that have the hotel roots for 
 the bacteria furnish nitrogen not only for 
 themselves but for the crops that follow. Corn 
 can t get nitrogen out of the air; but clover 
 can and that s why we ought to plow down 
 clover before a crop of corn." 
 
 "Gee!" said Newt. "If you could get to 
 teach our school, I d go again." 
 
 "It would interfere with your pool playing." 
 
 "What business is that o yours?" inter 
 rogated Newt defiantly. 
 
 "Well, get busy with that shovel," suggested 
 Jim, who had been working steadily, driving 
 
20 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 out upon the fill occasionally to unload. On his 
 return from dumping the next load, Newton 
 seemed, in a superior way, quite amiably dis 
 posed toward his workfellow rather the ha 
 bitual thing in the neighborhood. 
 
 "I ll work my old man to vote for you for 
 the job," said he. 
 
 "What job?" asked Jim. 
 
 "Teacher for our school," answered Newt. 
 
 "Those school directors," replied Jim, "have 
 become so bullheaded that they ll never vote for 
 any one except the applicants they ve been vot 
 ing for." 
 
 "The old man says he will have Prue Foster 
 again, or he ll give the school a darned long 
 vacation, unless Peterson and Bonner join on 
 some one else. That would beat Prue, of 
 course." 
 
 "And Con Bonner won t vote for any one 
 but Maggie Gilmartin," added Jim. 
 
 "And," supplied Newton, "Haakon Peterson 
 says he ll stick to Herman Paulson until the 
 Hot Springs freeze over." 
 
 "And there you are," said Jim. "You tell 
 your father for me that I think he s a mere 
 
A MAIDEN S "HUMPH!" 21 
 
 mule and that the whole district thinks the 
 same." 
 
 "All right," said Newt. "I ll tell him that 
 While I m working him to vote for you." 
 
 Jim smiled grimly. Such a position might 
 have been his years ago, if he could have left 
 his mother or earned enough in it to keep both 
 alive. He had remained a peasant because the 
 American rural teacher is placed economically 
 lower than the peasant. He gave Newton s 
 chatter no consideration. But when, in the 
 afternoon, he hitched his team with others to 
 the big road grader, and the gang became con 
 centrated within talking distance, he found 
 that the project of heckling and chaffing him 
 about his eminent fitness for a scholastic posi 
 tion was to be the real entertainment of the 
 occasion. 
 
 "Jim s the candidate to bust the deadlock," 
 said Columbus Brown, with a wink. "Just like 
 Garfield in that Republican convention he was 
 nominated in eh, Con?" 
 
 "Con" was Cornelius Bonner, an Irishman, 
 one of the deadlocked school board, and the 
 
22 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 captain of the road grader. He winked back 
 at the pathmaster. 
 
 "Jim s the gray-eyed man o destiny," he re 
 plied, "if he can get two votes in that board." 
 
 "You d vote for me, wouldn t you, Con?" 
 asked Jim. 
 
 "I ll try annything wance," replied Bonner. 
 
 "Try voting with Ezra Bronson once, for 
 Prue Foster," suggested Jim. "She s done 
 good work here." 
 
 "Opinions differ," said Bonner, "an when 
 you try annything just for wance, it shouldn t 
 be an irrevocable shtip, me bye." 
 
 "You re a reasonable board of public serv 
 ants," said Jim ironically. "I d like to tell the 
 whole board what I think of them." 
 
 "Come down to-night," said Bonner jeer- 
 ingly. "We re going to have a board meeting 
 at the schoolhouse and ballot a few more times. 
 Come down, and be the Garfield of the convin- 
 tion. We ve lacked brains on the board, that s 
 clear. They ain t a man on the board that iver 
 studied algebra, r that knows more about 
 farmin than their impl yers. Come down to 
 the schoolhouse, and we ll have a field-hand ad- 
 
A MAIDEN S "HUMPH!" 23 
 
 driss the school board and begosh, I ll move 
 yer illiction mesilf ! Come, now, Jimmy, me 
 bye, be game. It ll vary the program, anny- 
 how." 
 
 The entire gang grinned. Jim flushed, and 
 then reconquered his calmness of spirit. 
 
 "All right, Con," said he. "I ll come and tell 
 you a few things and you can do as you like 
 about making the motion." 
 
CHAPTER H 
 
 REVERSED UNANIMITY 
 
 great blade of the grading machine, 
 running diagonally across the road and 
 pulling the earth toward its median line, had 
 made several trips, and much persiflage about 
 Jim Irwin s forthcoming appearance before 
 the board had been addressed to Jim and ex 
 changed by others for his benefit. 
 
 To Newton Bronson was given the task of 
 leveling and distributing the earth rolled into 
 the road by the grader a labor which in the 
 interests of fitting a muzzle on his big mongrel 
 dog he deserted whenever the machine moved 
 away from him. No dog would have seemed 
 less deserving of a muzzle, for he was a 
 friendly animal, always wagging his tail, press 
 ing his nose into people s palms, licking their 
 clothing and otherwise making a nuisance of 
 himself. That there was some mystery about 
 24 
 
BEVERSED UNANIMITY 25 
 
 the muzzle was evident from Newton s pains 
 to make a secret of it. Its wires were curled 
 into a ring directly over the dog s nose, and 
 into this ring Newton had fitted a cork, 
 through which he had thrust a large needle 
 which protruded, an inch-long bayonet, in 
 front of Ponto s nose. As the grader swept 
 back, horses straining, harness creaking and 
 a billow of dark earth rolling before the knife, 
 Ponto, fully equipped with this stinger, raced 
 madly alongside, a friend to every man, but 
 not unlike some people, one whose friendship 
 was of all things to be most dreaded. 
 
 As the grader moved along one side of 
 the highway, a high-powered automobile ap 
 proached on the other. It was attempting to 
 rush the swale for the hill opposite, and 
 making rather bad weather of the newly re 
 paired road. A pile of loose soil that Newton 
 had allowed to lie just across the path made 
 a certain maintenance of speed desirable. The 
 knavish Newton planted himself in the path 
 of the laboring car, and waved its driver a 
 command to halt. The car came to a standstill 
 with its front wheels in the edge of the loose 
 
26 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 earth, and the chauffeur fuming at the possi 
 bility of stalling a contingency upon which 
 Newton had confidently reckoned. 
 
 "What d ye want?" he demanded. "What 
 d ye mean by stopping me in this kind of 
 place?" 
 
 "I want to ask you," said Newton with mock 
 politeness, "if you have the correct time." 
 
 The chauffeur sought words appropriate to 
 his feelings. Ponto and his muzzle saved him 
 the trouble. A pretty pointer leaped from the 
 car, and attracted by the evident friendliness 
 of Ponto s greeting, pricked up its ears, and 
 sought, in a spirit of canine brotherhood, to 
 touch noses with him. The needle in Ponto s 
 muzzle did its work to the agony and horror 
 of the pointer, which leaped back with a yelp, 
 and turned tail. Ponto, in an effort to apolo 
 gize, followed, and finding itself bayonetted at 
 every contact with this demon dog, the pointer 
 definitely took flight, howling, leaving Ponto 
 in a state of wonder and humiliation at the 
 sudden end of what had promised to be a very 
 friendly acquaintance. I have known instances 
 not entirely dissimilar among human beings. 
 
REVERSED UNANIMITY 27 
 
 The pointer s master watched its strange 
 flight, and swore. His eye turned to the boy 
 who had caused all this, and he alighted pale 
 with anger. 
 
 "I ve got time," said he, remembering New 
 ton s impudent question, "to give you what 
 you deserve." 
 
 Newton grinned and dodged, but the bank 
 of loose earth was his undoing, and while he 
 stumbled, the chauffeur caught and held him 
 by the collar. And as he held the boy, the op 
 eration of flogging him in the presence of the 
 grading gang grew less to his taste. Again 
 Ponto intervened, for as the chauffeur stood 
 holding Newton, the dog, evidently regarding 
 the stranger as his master s friend, thrust his 
 nose into the chauffeur s palm the needle nec 
 essarily preceding the nose. The chauffeur 
 behaved much as his pointer had done, sav 
 ing and excepting that the pointer did not 
 swear. 
 
 It was funny even the pain involved could 
 not make it otherwise than funny. The grad 
 ing gang laughed to a man. Newton grinned 
 even while in the fell clutch of circumstance. 
 
28 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 Ponto tried to smell the chauffeur s trousers, 
 and what had been a laugh became a roar, 
 quite general save for the fact that the chauf 
 feur did not join in it. 
 
 Caution and mercy departed from the chauf 
 feur s mood ; and he drew back his fist to strike 
 the boy and found it caught by the hard hand 
 of Jim Irwin. 
 
 "You re too angry to punish this boy," said 
 Jim gently, "even if you had the right to 
 punish him at all !" 
 
 "Oh, cut it out," said a fat man in the rear 
 of the car, who had hitherto manifested no in 
 terest in anything save Ponto. "Get in, and 
 let s be on our way!" 
 
 The chauffeur, however, recognized in a man 
 of mature years and full size, and a creature 
 with no mysterious needle in his nose, a relief 
 from his embarrassment. Unhesitatingly, he 
 released Newton, and blindly, furiously and f u- 
 tilely, he delivered a blow meant for Jim s jaw, 
 but which really miscarried by a foot. In re 
 ply, Jim countered with an awkward swinging 
 uppercut, which was superior to the chauffeur s 
 blow in one respect only it landed fairly on the 
 
Jim countered with an awkward uppercut 
 
REVERSED UNANIMITY 29 
 
 point of the jaw. The chauffeur staggered and 
 slowly toppled over into the soft earth which 
 had caused so much of the rumpus. Newton 
 Bronson slipped behind a hedge, and took his 
 infernally equipped dog with him. The grader 
 gang formed a ring about the combatants and 
 waited. Colonel Woodruff, driving toward 
 home in his runabout, held up by the traffic 
 blockade, asked what was going on here, and 
 the chauffeur, rising groggily, picked up his 
 goggles, climbed into the car; and the meeting 
 dissolved, leaving Jim Irwin greatly embar 
 rassed by the fact that for the first time in his 
 life, he had struck a man in combat. 
 
 "Good work, Jim," said Cornelius Bonner. 
 "I didn t think twas in ye!" 
 
 "It s beastly," said Jim, reddening. "I didn t 
 know, either." 
 
 Colonel Woodruff looked at his hired man 
 sharply, gave him some instructions for the 
 next day and drove on. The road gang dis 
 persed for the afternoon. Newton Bronson 
 carefully secreted the magic muzzle, and 
 chuckled at what had been perhaps the most 
 picturesquely successful bit of deviltry in his 
 
SO THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 varied record. Jim Irwin put out his team, got 
 his supper and went to the meeting of the school 
 board. 
 
 The deadlocked members of the board had 
 been so long at loggerheads that their relations 
 had swayed back to something like amity. Jim 
 had scarcely entered when Con Bonner ad 
 dressed the chair. 
 
 "Mr. Prisidint," said he, "we have wid us 
 t night, a young man who nades no introduc 
 tion to an audience in this place, Mr. Jim Ir 
 win. He thinks we re bullheaded mules, and 
 that all the schools are bad. At the proper 
 time I shall move that we hire him f r teacher ; 
 and pinding that motion, I move that he be 
 given the floor. Ye ve all heared of Mr. Ir- 
 win s ability as a white hope, and I know he ll 
 be listened to wid respect!" 
 
 Much laughter from the board and the spec 
 tators, as Jim arose. He looked upon it as ridi 
 cule of himself, while Con Bonner regarded it 
 as a tribute to his successful speech. 
 
 "Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board," 
 said Jim, "I m not going to tell you anything 
 that you don t know about yourselves. You 
 
REVERSED UNANIMITY 31 
 
 are simply making a farce of the matter of 
 hiring a teacher for this school. It is not as 
 if any of you had a theory that the teaching 
 methods of one of these teachers would be any 
 better than or much different from those of 
 the others. You know, and I know, that which 
 ever is finally engaged, or even if your silly 
 deadlock is broken by employing a new candi 
 date, the school will be the same old story. It 
 will still be the school it was when I came into 
 it a little ragged boy" here Jim s voice grew a 
 little husky "and when I left it, a bigger boy, 
 but still as ragged as ever." 
 
 There was a slight sensation in the audience, 
 as if, as Con Bonner said about the knock 
 down, they hadn t thought Jim Irwin could 
 doit 
 
 "Well," said Con, "you ve done well to hold 
 your own." 
 
 "In all the years I attended this school," Jim 
 went on, "I never did a bit of work in school 
 which was economically useful. It was all dry 
 stuff copied from the city schools. No other 
 pupil ever did any real work of the sort farm 
 ers boys and girls should do. We copied city 
 
32 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 schools and the schools we copied are poor 
 schools. We made bad copies of them, too. If 
 any of you three men were making a fight for 
 what Roosevelt s Country Life Commission 
 called a new kind of rural school/ I d say fight. 
 But you aren t. You re just making individual 
 fights for your favorite teachers." 
 
 Jim Irwin made a somewhat lengthy speech 
 after the awkwardness wore off, so long that 
 his audience was nodding and yawning by the 
 time he reached his peroration, in which he ab 
 jured Bronson, Bonner and Peterson to study 
 his plan of a new kind of rural school, in 
 which the work of the school should be corre 
 lated with the life of the home and the farm 
 a school which would be in the highest de 
 gree cultural by being consciously useful and 
 obviously practical. There sharp spats of ap 
 plause from the useless hands of Newton Bron 
 son gave the final touch of absurdity to a sit 
 uation which Jim had felt to be ridiculous all 
 through. Had it not been for Jennie Wood 
 ruff s "Humph !" stinging him to do something 
 outside the round of duties into which he had 
 fallen, had it not been for the absurd notion 
 
"We have wid us t night" 
 
REVERSED UNANIMITY 33 
 
 that perhaps, after they had heard his speech, 
 they would place him in charge of the school, 
 and that he might be able to do something 
 really important in it, he would not have been 
 there. As he sat down, he felt himself a silly 
 clodhopper, filled with the east wind of his own 
 conceit, out of touch with the real world of 
 men. He knew himself a dreamer. The nod 
 ding board of directors, the secretary, actually 
 snoring, and the bored audience restored the 
 field-hand to a sense of his proper place. 
 
 "We have had the privilege of list nin ," said 
 Con Bonner, rising, "to a great speech, Mr. 
 Prisidint. We should be proud to have a borned 
 orator like this in the agricultural population 
 of the district. A regular William Jennin s 
 Bryan. I don t understand what he was try 
 ing to tell us, but sometimes I ve had the same 
 difficulty with the spaches of the Boy Orator 
 of the Platte. Makin a good spache is one 
 thing, and teaching a good school is another, 
 but in order to bring this matter before the 
 board, I nominate Mr. James E. Irwin, the Boy 
 Orator of the Woodruff District, and the new 
 white hope, f r the job of teacher of this school, 
 
34 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 and I move that when he shall have received 
 a majority of the votes of this board, the sec 
 retary and prisidint be insthructed to enter 
 into a contract with him f r the comin year." 
 
 The seconding of motions on a board of 
 three has its objectionable features, since it 
 seems to commit a majority of the body to the 
 motion in advance. The president, therefore, 
 followed usage, when he said "If there s no 
 objection, it will be so ordered. The chair 
 hears no objection and it is so ordered. Pre 
 pare the ballots for a vote on the election of 
 teacher, Mr. Secretary. Each votes his prefer 
 ence for teacher. A majority elects." 
 
 For months, the ballots had come out of the 
 box an empty crayon-box Herman Paulson, 
 one; Prudence Foster, one; Margaret Gilmar- 
 tin, one; and every one present expected the 
 same result now. There was no surprise, how 
 ever, in view of the nomination of Jim Irwin 
 by the blarneying Bonner when the secretary 
 smoothed out the first ballot, and read : "James 
 E. Irwin, one." Clearly this was the Bonner 
 vote ; but when the next slip came forth, "James 
 E. Irwin, two," the Board of Directors of the 
 
REVERSED UNANIMITY 35 
 
 Woodruff Independent District were stunned 
 at the slowly dawning knowledge that they had 
 made an election ! Before they had rallied, the 
 secretary drew from the box the third and last 
 ballot, and read, "James E. Irwin, three." 
 
 President Bronson choked as he announced 
 the result choked and stammered, and made 
 very hard weather of it, but he went through 
 with the motion, as we all run in our grooves. 
 
 "The ballot having shown the unanimous 
 election of James E. Irwin, I declare him 
 elected." 
 
 He dropped into his chair, while the secre 
 tary, a very methodical man, drew from his 
 portfolio a contract duly drawn up save for the 
 
 signatures of the officers of the district, and 
 I 
 
 the name and signature of the teacher-elect. 
 This he calmly filled out, and passed over to the 
 president, pointing to the dotted line. Mr. 
 Bronson would have signed his own death- 
 warrant at that moment, not to mention a 
 perfectly legal document, and signed with 
 Peterson and Bonner looking on stonily. The 
 secretary signed and shoved the contract over 
 to Jim Irwin. 
 
36 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "Sign there," he said. 
 
 Jim looked it over, saw the other signatures, 
 and felt an impulse to dodge the whole thing. 
 He could not feel that the action of the board 
 was serious. He thought of the platform he 
 had laid down for himself, and was daunted. 
 He thought of the days in the open field, and 
 f the untroubled evenings with his books, and 
 he shrank from the work. Then he thought of 
 Jennie Woodruff s "Humph!" and he signed! 
 
 "Move we adjourn," said Peterson. 
 
 "No bjection t s so ordered!" said Mr. 
 Bronson. 
 
 The secretary and Jim went out, while the 
 directors waited. 
 
 "What the Billy" began Bonner, and fin 
 ished lamely ! "What for did you vote for the 
 dub, Ez?" 
 
 "I voted for him," replied Bronson, "because 
 he fought for my boy this afternoon. I didn t 
 want it stuck into him too hard. I wanted him 
 to have one vote." 
 
 "An I wanted him to have wan vote, too," 
 said Bonner. "I thought mesilf the only dang 
 fool on the board an he made a spache that 
 
REVERSED UNANIMITY 37 
 
 aimed wan vote but f r the love of hivin, that 
 dub f r a teacher! What come over you, 
 Haakon you voted f r him, too!" 
 
 "Ay vanted him to have one wote, too," said 
 Peterson. 
 
 And in this wise, Jim became the teacher in 
 the Woodruff District all on account of Jennie 
 Woodruif s "Humph!" 
 
CHAPTER III 
 WHAT IS A BROWN MOUSE 
 
 T IMMEDIATELY upon the accidental election 
 * of Jim Irwin to the position of teacher of 
 the Woodruff school, he developed habits some 
 what like a ghost s or a bandit s. That is, he 
 walked of nights and on rainy days. 
 
 On fine days, he worked in Colonel Woodruff s 
 fields as of yore. Had he been appointed to a 
 position attached to a salary of fifty thousand 
 dollars a year, he might have spent six months 
 on a preliminary vacation in learning some 
 thing about his new duties. But Jim s salary 
 was to be three hundred and sixty dollars for 
 nine months work in the Woodruff school, and 
 he was to find himself and his mother. There 
 fore, he had to indulge in his loose habits of 
 night walking and roaming about after hours 
 only, or on holidays and in foul weather. 
 38 
 
WHAT IS A BROWN MOUSE 39 
 
 The Simms family, being from the mountings 
 of Tennessee, were rather startled one night, 
 when Jim Irwin, homely, stooped and errand- 
 less, silently appeared in their family circle 
 about the front door. They had lived where it 
 was the custom to give a whoop from the big 
 road before one passed through the palin s and 
 up to the house. Otherwise, how was one to 
 know whether the visitor was friend or foe? 
 
 From force of habit, Old Man Simms started 
 for his gun-rack at Jim s appearance, but the 
 Lincolnian smile and the low slow speech, so 
 much like his own in some respects, ended that 
 part of the matter. Besides, Old Man Simms 
 remembered that none of the Hobdays, whose 
 hostilities somewhat stood in the way of the 
 return of the Simmses to their native hills, 
 could possibly be expected to appear thus in 
 Iowa. 
 
 "Stranger," said Mr. Simms, after greetings 
 had been exchanged, "you re right welcome, 
 but in my kentry you d find it dangersome to 
 walk in thisaway." 
 
 "How so?" queried Jim Irwin. 
 
 "You d more n likely git shot up some," re- 
 
40 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 plied Mr. Simms, "onless you whooped from 
 the big road." 
 
 "I didn t know that," replied Jim. "I m 
 ignorant of the customs of other countries. 
 Would you rather I d whoop from the big 
 r oad nobody else will." 
 
 "I reckon," replied Mr. Simms, "that we-all 
 will have to accommodate ourse ves to the 
 ways hyeh." 
 
 Evidently Jim was the Simms first caller 
 since they had settled on the little brushy tract 
 whose hills and trees reminded them of their 
 mountains. Low hills, to be sure, with only 
 a footing of rocks where the creek had cut 
 through, and not many trees, but down in the 
 creek bed, with the oaks, elms and box-elders 
 arching overhead, the Simmses could imagine 
 themselves beside some run falling into the 
 French Broad, or the Holston. The creek bed 
 was a withdrawing room in which to retire 
 from the eternal black soil and level corn 
 fields of Iowa. What if the soil was so poor, 
 in comparison with those black uplands, that 
 the owner of the old wood-lot could find no 
 renter? It was better than the soil in the 
 
WHAT IS A BROWN MOUSE 41 
 
 mountains, and suited the lonesome Simmsea 
 much more than a better farm would have 
 done. They were not of the Iowa people any 
 how, not understood, not their equals they 
 were pore, and expected to stay pore while 
 the Iowa people all seemed to be either well- 
 to-do, or expecting to become so. It was much 
 more agreeable to the Simmses to retire to the 
 back wood-lot farm with the creek bed running 
 through it. 
 
 Jim Irwin asked Old Man Simms about the 
 fishing in the creek, and whether there was any 
 duck shooting spring and fall. 
 ^ "We git right smart of these little panfish," 
 said Mr. Simms, "an Calista done shot two 
 butterball ducks about tater-plantin time." 
 
 Calista blushed but this stranger, so much 
 like themselves, could not see the rosy suffusion. 
 The allusion gave him a chance to look about 
 him at the family. There was a boy of sixteen, 
 a girl the duck-shooting Calista younger 
 than Raymond a girl of eleven, named Vir 
 ginia, but called Jinnie and a smaller lad 
 who rejoiced in the name of McGeehee, but was 
 mercifully called Buddy. 
 
42 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 Calista squirmed for something to say. 
 "Raymond runs a line o traps when the fur s 
 prime," she volunteered. 
 
 Then came a long talk on traps and trapping, 
 shooting, hunting and the joys of the moun 
 tings during which Jim noted the ignorance 
 and poverty of the Simmses. The clothing of 
 the girls was not decent according to local 
 standards ; for while Calista wore a skirt hur 
 riedly slipped on, Jim was quite sure and not 
 without evidence to support his views that 
 she had been wearing when he arrived the 
 same regimentals now displayed by Jinnie a 
 pair of ragged blue overalls. Evidently the 
 Simmses were wearing what they had and not 
 what they desired. The father was faded, 
 patched, gray and earthy, and the boys looked 
 better than the rest solely because we expect 
 boys to be torn and patched. Mrs. Simms was 
 invisible except as a gray blur beyond the rain- 
 barrel, in the midst of which her pipe glowed 
 with a regular ebb and flow of embers. 
 
 On the next rainy day Jim called again and 
 secured the services of Raymond to help him 
 select seed corn. He was going to teach the 
 
WHAT IS A BROWN MOUSE 43 
 
 school next winter, and he wanted to have a 
 seed-corn frolic the first day, instead of waiting 
 until the last and you had to get seed corn 
 while it was on the stalk, if you got the best. 
 No Simms could refuse a favor to the fellow 
 who was so much like themselves, and who 
 was so greatly interested in trapping, hunting 
 and the Tennessee mountains so Raymond 
 went with Jim, and with Newt Bronson and 
 five more they selected Colonel Woodruff s seed 
 corn for the next year, under the colonel s 
 personal superintendence. 
 
 In the evening they looked the grain over 
 on the Woodruff lawn, and the colonel talked 
 about corn and corn selection. They had sup 
 per at half past six, and Jennie waited on them 
 having assisted her mother in the cooking. 
 It was quite a festival. Jim Irwin was the 
 least conspicuous person in the gathering, but 
 the colonel, who was a seasoned politician, ob 
 served that the farm-hand had become a fisher 
 of men, and was angling for the souls of these 
 boys, and their interest in the school. Jim was 
 careful not to flush the covey, but every boy 
 received from the next winter s teacher some 
 
44 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 confidential hint as to plans, and some sugges 
 tion that Jim was relying on the aid and com 
 fort of that particular boy. Newt Bronson, 
 especially, was leaned on as a strong staff and 
 a very present help in time of trouble. As 
 for Raymond Simms, it was clearly best to 
 leave him alone. All this talk of corn selection 
 and related things was new to him, and he 
 drank it in thirstily. He had an inestimable 
 advantage over Newt in that he was starved, 
 while Newt was surfeited with "advantages" 
 for which he had no use. 
 
 "Jennie," said Colonel Woodruff, after the 
 party had broken up, "I m losing the best hand 
 I ever had, and I ve been sorry." 
 
 "I m glad he s leaving you," said Jennie. "He 
 ought to do something except work in the field 
 for wages." 
 
 "I ve had no idea he could make good as a 
 teacher and what is there in it if he does?" 
 
 "What has he lost if he doesn t?" rejoined 
 Jennie. "And why can t he make good?" 
 
 "The school board s against him, for one 
 thing," replied the colonel. "They ll fire him if 
 they get a chance. They re the laughing-stock 
 
WHAT IS A BROWN MOUSE 45 
 
 of the country for hiring him by mistake, and 
 they re irritated. But after seeing him per 
 form to-night, I wonder if he can t make good/ 
 
 "If he could feel like anything but an under* 
 ling, he d succeed," said Jennie. 
 
 "That s his heredity," stated the colonel, 
 whose live-stock operations were based on 
 heredity. "Jim s a scrub, I suppose; but he 
 acts as if he might turn out to be a Brown 
 Mouse." 
 
 "What do you mean, pa," scoffed Jennie "a 
 Brown Mouse!" 
 
 "A fellow in Edinburgh," said the colonel, 
 "crossed the Japanese waltzing mouse with the 
 common white mouse. Jim s pedling father 
 was a waltzing mouse, no good except to jump 
 from one spot to another for no good reason,, 
 Jim s mother is an albino of a woman, with all 
 the color washed out in one way or another. Jim 
 ought to be a mongrel, and I ve always con 
 sidered him one. But the Edinburgh fellow 
 every once in a while got out of his variously- 
 colored, waltzing and albino hybrids, a brown 
 mouse. It wasn t a common house mouse, 
 either, but a wild mouse unlike any he had 
 
46 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 ever seen. It ran away, and bit and 
 gnawed, and raised hob. It was what we breed 
 ers call a Mendelian segregation of genetic 
 factors that had been in the waltzers and al 
 binos all the time their original wild ancestor 
 of the woods and fields. If Jim turns out to be 
 a Brown Mouse, he may be a bigger man than 
 any of us. Anyhow, I m for him." 
 
 "He ll have to be a big man to make anything 
 out of the job of a country school-teacher," said 
 Jennie. 
 
 "Any job s as big as the man who holds it 
 down," said her father. 
 
 Next day, Jim received a letter from Jennie. 
 
 "Dear Jim," it ran. "Father says you are 
 sure to have a hard time the school board s 
 against you, and all that. But he added, I m 
 for Jim, anyhow ! I thought you d like to know 
 this. Also he said, Any job s as big as the man 
 who holds it down. And I believe this also, 
 and I m for you, too! You are doing wonders 
 even before the school starts in getting the 
 pupils interested in a lot of things, which, while 
 they don t belong to school work, will make 
 them friends of yours. I don t see how this 
 will help you much, but it s a fine thing, and 
 shows your interest in them. Don t be too 
 original. The wheel runs easiest in the beaten 
 track. Yours. Jennie." 
 
WHAT IS A BROWN MOUSE 47 
 
 Jennie s caution made no impression on Jim 
 but he put the letter away, and every evening 
 took it out and read the italicized words, "I m 
 for you, too!" The colonel s dictum, "Any job s 
 as big as the man who holds it down," was 
 an Emersonian truism to Jim. It reduced all 
 jobs to an equality, and it meant equality in 
 intellectual and spiritual development. It 
 didn t mean, for instance, that any job was as 
 good as another in making it possible for a 
 man to marry and Jennie Woodruff s 
 "Humph!" returned to kill and drag off her 
 "I m for you, tool" 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL 
 
 I SUPPOSE every reader will say that genius 
 consists very largely in seeing Opportunity 
 in the set of circumstances or thoughts or im 
 pressions that constitute Opportunity, and 
 making the best of them. 
 
 Jim Irwin would have said so, anyhow. He 
 was full of his Emerson s Representative Men, 
 and his Carlyle s French Revolution, and the 
 other old-fashioned, excellent good literature 
 which did not cost over twenty-five cents a 
 volume ; and he had pored long and with many 
 thrills over the pages of Matthews Getting on 
 in the World which is the best book of purely 
 conventional helpfulness in the language. And 
 his view of efficiency was that it is the capacity 
 to see opportunity where others overlook it, 
 and make the most of it. 
 
 All through his life he had had his own plans 
 48 
 
THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL 49 
 
 for becoming great. He was to be a general, 
 hurling back the foes of his country; he was 
 to be the nation s master in literature; a suc 
 cessful drawing on his slate had filled him 
 with ambition, confidently entertained, of be 
 coming a Rubens and the story of Benjamin 
 West in his school reader fanned this spark 
 to a flame; science, too, had at times been his 
 chosen field; and when he had built a mouse 
 trap which actually caught mice, he saw him 
 self a millionaire inventor. As for being presi 
 dent, that was a commonplace in his dreams. 
 And all the time, he was barefooted, ill-clad 
 and dreamed his dreams to the accompaniment 
 of the growl of the plow cutting the roots 
 under the brown furrow-slice, or the wooshing 
 of the milk in the pail. At twenty-eight, he 
 considered these dreams over. 
 
 As for this new employment, he saw no great 
 opportunity in it. Of any spark of genius he 
 was to show in it, of anything he was to suffer 
 in it, of those pains and penalties wherewith 
 the world pays its geniuses, Jim Irwin antici 
 pated nothing. He went into the small, mean, 
 ill-paid task as a part of the day s work, with 
 
50 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 no knowledge of the stirring of the nation fo* 
 a different sort of rural school, and no sus 
 picion that there lay in it any highway to suc 
 cess in life. He was not a college man or even 
 a high-school man. All his other dreams had 
 found rude awakening in the fact that he had 
 not been able to secure the schooling which 
 geniuses need in these days. He was unfitted 
 for the work geniuses do. All he was to be 
 was a rural teacher, accidentally elected by a 
 stupid school board, and with a hard tussle 
 before him to stay on the job for the term of 
 his contract. He could have accepted positions 
 quite as good years ago, save for the fact that 
 they would have taken him away from his 
 mother, their cheap little home, their garden 
 and their fowls. He rather wondered why 
 he had allowed Jennie s sneer to sting him 
 into the course of action which put him in this 
 new relation to his neighbors. 
 
 But, true to his belief in honest thorough 
 work, like a general preparing for battle, he 
 examined his field of operations. His manner 
 of doing this seemed to prove to Colonel Wood 
 ruff, who watched it with keen interest as some- 
 
THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL 51 
 
 thing new in the world, that Jim Irwin was 
 possibly a Brown Mouse. But the colonel knew 
 only a part of Jim s performances. He saw 
 Jim clothed in slickers, walking through rain 
 storms to the houses in the Woodruff District, 
 as greedy for every moment of rain as a hay 
 maker for shine; and he knew that Jim made 
 a great many evening calls. 
 
 But he did not know that Jim was making 
 what our sociologists call a survey. For that 
 matter, neither did Jim ; for books on sociology 
 cost more than twenty-five cents a volume, and 
 Jim had never seen one. However, it was a 
 survey. To be sure, he had long known every 
 body in the district, save the Simmses and he 
 was now a friend of all that exotic race; but 
 there is knowing and knowing. He now had 
 note-books full of facts about people and their 
 farms. He knew how many acres each family 
 possessed, and what sort of farming each hus 
 band was doing live stock, grain or mixed. 
 He knew about the mortgages, and the debts. 
 He knew whether the family atmosphere was 
 happy and contented, or the reverse. He knew 
 which boys and girls were wayward and in- 
 
52 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 subordinate. He made a record of the advance 
 ment in their studies of all the children, and 
 what they liked to read. He knew their favor 
 ite amusements. He talked with their mothers 
 and sisters not about the school, to any ex 
 tent, but on the weather, the horses, the auto 
 mobiles, the silo-filling machinery and the 
 profits of farming. 
 
 I suppose that no person who has undertaken 
 the management of the young people of any 
 school in all the history of education, ever did 
 so much work of this sort before his school 
 opened. Really, though Jennie Woodruff did 
 not see how such doings related to school 
 work, Jim Irwin s school was running full blast 
 in the homes of the district and the minds of 
 many pupils, weeks and weeks before that day 
 when he called them to order on the Monday 
 specified in his contract as the first day of 
 school. 
 
 Con Bonner, who came to see the opening, 
 voiced the sentiments of the older people when 
 he condemned the school as disorderly. To be 
 sure, there were more pupils enrolled than 
 had ever entered on a first day in the whole 
 
THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL 53 
 
 history of the school, and it was hard to ac 
 commodate them all. But the director s criti 
 cism was leveled against the free-and-easy air 
 of the children. Most of them had brought 
 seed corn and a good-sized corn show was on 
 view. There was much argument as to the 
 merits of the various entries. Instead of a 
 language lesson from the text-book, Jim had 
 given them an exercise based on an examina 
 tion of the ears of corn. 
 
 The number exercises of the little chaps had 
 been worked out with ears and kernels of corn. 
 One class in arithmetic calculated the percent 
 age of inferior kernels at tip and butt to the 
 full-sized grains in the middle of the ear. 
 
 All the time, Jim Irwin, awkward and 
 uncouth, clad in his none-too-good Sunday suit 
 and trying to hide behind his Lincolnian smile 
 the fact that he was pretty badly frightened 
 and much embarrassed, passed among them, 
 getting them enrolled, setting them to work, 
 wasting much time and laboring like a heavy- 
 laden barge in a seaway. 
 
 "That feller ll never do," said Bonner to 
 
54 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 Bronson next day. "Looks like a tramp in the 
 schoolroom/ 
 
 "Wearin his best, I guess," said Bronson. 
 
 "Half the kids call him Jim/ " said Bonner. 
 
 "That s all right with me," replied Bronson. 
 
 "The room was as noisy as a caucus," was 
 Bonner s next indictment, "and the flure was 
 all over corn like a hog-pin." 
 
 "Oh! I don t suppose he can get away with 
 it," assented Bronson disgustedly, "but that 
 boy of mine is as tickled as a colt with the 
 whole thing. Says he s goin reg lar this 
 winter." 
 
 "That s because Jim don t keep no order," 
 said Bonner. "He lets Newt do as he dam 
 pleases." 
 
 "First time he s ever pleased to do anything 
 but deviltry," protested Bronson. "Oh, I sup 
 pose Jim ll fall down, and we ll have to fire 
 him but I wish we could git a good teacher 
 that would git hold of Newt the way he 
 seems to !" 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE PROMOTION OF JENNIE 
 
 IF Jennie Woodruff was the cause of Jim 
 Irwin s sudden irruption into the educa 
 tional field by her scoffing "Humph !" at the idea 
 of a farm-hand s ever being able to marry, she 
 also gave him the opportunity to knock down 
 the driver of the big motor-car, and perceptibly 
 elevate himself in the opinion of the neighbor 
 hood, while filling his own heart with something 
 like shame. 
 
 The fat man who had said "Cut it out" to his 
 driver, was Mr. Charles Dilly, a business man 
 in the village at the extreme opposite corner 
 of the county. His choice of the Woodruff Dis 
 trict as a place for motoring had a secret expla 
 nation. I am under no obligation to preserve 
 the secret. He came to see Colonel Woodruff 
 and Jennie. Mr. Dilly was a candidate for 
 county treasurer, and wished to be nominated 
 
 55 
 
56 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 at the approaching county convention. In his 
 part of the county lived the county superin 
 tendent a candidate for renomination. He 
 was just a plain garden or field county superin 
 tendent of schools, no better and no worse than 
 the general political run of them, but he had 
 local pride enlisted in his cause, and was a 
 good politician. 
 
 Mr. Dilly was in the Woodruff District to 
 build a backfire against this conflagration of 
 the county superintendent. He expected to use 
 Jennie Woodruff to light it withal. That is, 
 while denying that he wished to make any deal 
 or trade every candidate in every convention 
 always says that he wished to say to Miss 
 Woodruff and her father, that if Miss Woodruff 
 would permit her name to be used for the 
 office of county superintendent of schools, a 
 goodly group of delegates could be selected in 
 the other corner of the county who would be 
 glad to reciprocate any favors Mr. Charles J. 
 Dilly might receive in the way of votes for 
 county treasurer with ballots for Miss Jennie 
 Woodruff for superintendent of schools. 
 
 Mr. Dilly never inquired as to Miss Wood- 
 
THE PROMOTION OF JENNIE 57 
 
 ruff s abilities as an educator. That would 
 have been eccentric. Miss Woodruff never 
 asked herself if she knew anything about rural 
 education which especially fitted her for the 
 task ; for was she not a popular and successful 
 teacher and was not that enough? Mr. Dilly 
 merely asked himself if Miss Woodruff s name 
 could command strength enough to eliminate 
 the embarrassing candidate in his part of the 
 county and leave the field to himself. Miss 
 Woodruff asked herself whether the work 
 would not give her a pleasanter life than did 
 teaching, a better salary, and more chances 
 to settle herself in life. So are the officials 
 chosen who supervise and control the education 
 of the farm children of America. 
 
 This secret mission to effect a political trade 
 accounted for Mr. Dilly s desire that his driver 
 should "cut out" the controversy with Newton 
 Bronson, and the personal encounter with Jim 
 Irwin and it may account for Jim s easy vic 
 tory in his first and only physical encounter. 
 An office seeker could scarcely afford to let his 
 friend or employee lick a member of a farmers 
 road gang. It certainly explains the fact that 
 
58 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 when Jim Irwin started home from putting 
 out his team the day after his first call on the 
 Simms family, Jennie was waiting at the gate 
 to be congratulated on her nomination. 
 
 "I congratulate you," said Jim. 
 
 "Thanks," said Jennie, extending her hand. 
 
 "I hope you re elected," Jim went on, holding 
 the hand ; "but there s no doubt of that." 
 
 "They say not," replied Jennie; "but father 
 says I must go about and let the people see 
 me. He believes in working just as if we didn t 
 have a big majority for the ticket." 
 
 "A woman has an advantage of a man in 
 such a contest," said Jim; "she can work just 
 as hard as he can, and at the same time profit 
 by the fact that it s supposed she can t." 
 
 "I need all the advantage I possess," said 
 Jennie, "and all the votes. Say a word for me 
 when on your pastoral rounds." 
 
 "All right," said Jim, "what shall I say you ll 
 do for the schools?" 
 
 "Why," said Jennie, rather perplexed, "I ll 
 be fair in my examinations of teachers, try to 
 keep the unfit teachers out of the schools, visit 
 
THE PROMOTION OF JENNIE 59 
 
 schools as often as I can, and why, what does 
 any good superintendent do?" 
 
 "I never heard of a good county superin 
 tendent," said Jim. 
 
 "Never heard of one why, Jim Irwin !" 
 
 "I don t believe there is any such thing," 
 persisted Jim, "and if you do no more than you 
 say, you ll be off the same piece as the rest. 
 Your system won t give us any better schools 
 than we have of the old sort and we need a 
 new kind." 
 
 "Oh, Jim, Jim ! Dreaming as of yore ! Why 
 can t you be practical ! What do you mean by 
 a new kind of rural school?" 
 
 "A truly-rural rural school," said Jim. 
 
 "I can t pronounce it," smiled Jennie, "to say 
 nothing of understanding it. What would your 
 tralalooral rural school do?" 
 
 "It would be correlated with rural life," said 
 Jim. 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "It would get education out of the things the 
 farmers and farmers wives are interested in 
 as a part of their lives." 
 
60 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "What, for instance?" 
 
 "Dairying, for instance, in this district ; and 
 soil management; and corn-growing; and farm 
 manual training for boys ; and sewing, cooking 
 and housekeeping for the girls and caring for 
 babies!" 
 
 Jennie looked serious, after smothering a 
 laugh. 
 
 "Jim," said she, "you re going to have a hard 
 enough time to succeed in the Woodruff school, 
 if you confine yourself to methods that have 
 been tested, and found good." 
 
 "But the old methods," urged Jim, "have 
 been tested and found bad. Shall I keep to 
 them?" 
 
 "They have made the American people what 
 they are," said Jennie. "Don t be unpatriotic, 
 Jim." 
 
 "They have educated our farm children for 
 the cities," said Jim. "This county is losing 
 population and it s the best county in the 
 world." 
 
 "Pessimism never wins," said Jennie. 
 
 "Neither does blindness," answered Jim. "It 
 
THE PKOMOTION OF JENNIE 61 
 
 is losing the farms their dwellers, and swelling 
 the cities with a proletariat." 
 
 For some time, now, Jim had ceased to hold 
 Jennie s hand; and their sweetheart days had 
 never seemed farther away. 
 
 "Jinx," said Jennie, "I may be elected to a 
 position in which I shall be obliged to pass on 
 your acts as teacher in an official way, I mean. 
 I hope they will be justifiable." 
 
 Jim smiled his slowest and saddest smile. 
 
 "If they re not, I ll not ask you to condone 
 them," said he. "But first, they must be justi 
 fiable to me, Jennie." 
 
 "Good night," said Jennie curtly, and left 
 him. 
 
 Jennie, I am obliged to admit, gave scant 
 attention to the new career upon which her old 
 sweetheart seemed to be entering. She was 
 in politics, and was playing the game as be 
 came the daughter of a local politician. The 
 reader must not by this term get the impres 
 sion that Colonel Woodruff was a man of the 
 grafting tricky sort of which we are prone to 
 think when the term is used. The West has 
 been ruled by just such men as he, and the West 
 
62 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 has done rather well, all things considered. 
 Colonel Albert Woodruff went south with the 
 army as a corporal in 1861, and came back a 
 lieutenant. His title of colonel was conferred 
 by appointment as a member of the staff of 
 the governor, long years ago, when he was 
 county auditor. He was not a rich man, as I 
 may have suggested, but a well-to-do farmer, 
 whose wife did her own work much of thf 
 time, not because the colonel could not afforcj 
 to hire "help," but for the reason that "hired 
 girls" were hard to get. 
 
 The colonel, having seen the glory of the 
 coming of the Lord in the triumph of his side 
 in the great war, was inclined to think that all 
 reform had ceased, and was a political stand 
 patter a very honest and sincere one. More 
 over, he was influential enough so that when 
 Mr. Cummins or Mr. Dolliver came into the 
 county on political errands, Colonel Woodruff 
 had always been called into conference. He 
 was of the old New England type, believed 
 very much in heredity, very much in the theory 
 that whatever is is right, in so far as it has 
 secured money or power. 
 
!THE PROMOTION OF JENNIE 63 
 
 He had hated General Weaver and his forces ; 
 and had sometimes wondered how a man of 
 Horace Boies opinions had succeeded in being 
 so good a governor. He broke with Governor 
 Larrabee when that excellent man had turned 
 against the great men who had developed Iowa 
 by building the railroads. He was always in 
 the county convention, and preferred to serve 
 on the committee on credentials, and leave to 
 others the more showy work of membership in 
 the committee on resolutions. He believed in 
 education, provided it did not unsettle things. 
 He had a good deal of Latin and some Greek, 
 and lived on a farm rather than in a fine 
 house in the county seat because of his lack 
 of financial ability. As a matter of fact, he 
 had been too strictly scrupulous to do the 
 things such as dealing in lands belonging to 
 eastern speculators who were not advised as 
 to their values, speculating in county warrants, 
 buying up tax titles with county money, and 
 the like by which his fellow-politicians who 
 held office in the early years of the county had 
 founded their fortunes. A very respectable, 
 honest, American tory was the colonel, fond of 
 
64 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 his political sway, and rather soured by the 
 fact that it was passing from him. He had 
 now broken with Cummins and Dolliver as he 
 %ad done years ago with Weaver and later with 
 Larrabee and this breach was very important 
 to him, whether they were greatly concerned 
 about it or not. 
 
 Such being her family history, Jennie was 
 something of a politician herself. She was in 
 no way surprised when approached by party 
 managers on the subject of accepting the nomi 
 nation for county superintendent of schools. 
 Colonel Woodruff could deliver some delegates 
 to his daughter, though he rather shied at the 
 proposal at first, but on thinking it over, 
 warmed somewhat to the notion of having a 
 Woodruff on the county pay-roll once more. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 JIM TALKS THE WEATHER COLD 
 
 OING to the rally, James?" 
 Jim had finished his supper, and yearned 
 for a long evening in his attic den with his 
 cheap literature. But as the district school 
 master he was to some extent responsible for 
 the protection of the school property, and felt 
 some sense of duty as to exhibiting an interest 
 in public affairs. 
 
 "I guess I ll have to go, mother," he replied 
 regretfully. "I want to see Mr. Woodruff about 
 borrowing his Babcock milk tester, and I ll go 
 that way. I guess I ll go on to the meeting." 
 
 He kissed his mother when he went a habit 
 from which he never deviated, and another of 
 those personal peculiarities which had marked 
 him as different from the other boys of the 
 neighborhood. His mother urged his overcoat 
 upon him in vain for Jim s overcoat was dis- 
 
 65 
 
66 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 tinctly a bad one, while his best suit, now worn 
 every day as a concession to his scholastic 
 position, still looked passably well after several 
 weeks of schoolroom duty. She pressed him 
 to wear a muffler about his neck, but he de 
 clined that also. He didn t need it, he said; 
 but he was thinking of the incongruity of a 
 muffler with no overcoat. It seemed more 
 logical to assume that the weather was milder 
 than it really was, on that sharp October even 
 ing, and appear at his best, albeit rather aware 
 of the cold. Jennie was at home, and he was 
 likely to see and be seen of her. 
 
 "You can borrow that tester," said the 
 colonel, "and the cows that go with it, if you 
 can use em. They ain t earning their keep 
 here. But how does the milk tester fit into 
 the curriculum of the school? A decoration?" 
 
 "We want to make a few tests of the cows 
 in the neighborhood," answered Jim. "Just 
 another of my fool notions." 
 
 "All right," said the colonel. "Take it along. 
 Going to the speakin ?" 
 
 "Certainly, he s going," said Jennie, entering. 
 "This is my meeting, Jim." 
 
JIM TALKS THE WEATHER COLD 67 
 
 "Surely, I m going," assented Jim. "And I 
 think I ll run along." 
 
 "I wish we had room for you in the car," 
 said the colonel. "But I m going around by 
 Bronson s to pick up the speaker, and I ll have 
 a chuck-up load." 
 
 "Not so much of a load as you think," said 
 Jennie. "I m going with Jim. The walk will 
 do me good." 
 
 Any candidate warms to her voting popula 
 tion just before election; but Jennie had a 
 special kindness for Jim. He was no longer 
 a farm-hand. The fact that he was coming 
 to be a center of disturbance in the district, 
 and that she quite failed to understand how 
 his eccentric behavior could be harmonized 
 with those principles of teaching which she 
 had imbibed at the state normal school in 
 itself lifted him nearer to equality with her. 
 A public nuisance is really more respectable 
 than a nonentity. 
 
 She gave Jim a thrill as she passed through 
 the gate that he opened for her. White moon 
 light on her white furs suggested purity, exal 
 tation, the essence of womanhood things far 
 
68 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 finer in the woman of twenty-seven than the 
 glamour thrown over him by the schoolgirl 
 of sixteen. 
 
 Jim gave her no thrill; for he looked gaunt 
 and angular in his skimpy, ready-made suit, too 
 short in legs and sleeves, and too thin for the 
 season. Yet, as they walked along, Jim grew 
 upon her. He strode on with immense strides, 
 made slow to accommodate her shorter steps, 
 and embarrassing her by his entire absence of 
 effort to keep step. For all that, he lifted his 
 face to the stars, and he kept silence, save for 
 certain fragments of his thoughts, in dropping 
 which he assumed that she, like himself, was 
 filled with the grandeur of the sparkling sky, its 
 vast moon, plowing like an astronomical liner 
 through the cloudlets of a wool-pack. He 
 pointed out the great open spaces in the Milky 
 Way, wondering at their emptiness, and at the 
 fact that no telescope can find stars in them. 
 
 They stopped and looked. Jim laid his hard 
 hands on the shoulders of her white fur col 
 larette. 
 
 "What s the use of political meetings," said 
 Jim, "when you and I can stand here and think 
 
JIM TALKS THE WEATHER COLD 69 
 
 our way out, even beyond the limits of our 
 Universe?" 
 
 "A wonderful journey," said she, not quite 
 understanding his mood, but very respectful to 
 it. 
 
 "And together," said Jim. "I d like to go on 
 a long, long journey with you to-night, Jennie, 
 to make up for the years since we went any 
 where together." 
 
 "And we shouldn t have come together 
 to-night," said Jennie, getting back to earth, 
 "if I hadn t exercised my leap-year privilege." 
 
 She slipped her arm in his, and they went 
 on in a rather intimate way. 
 
 "I m not to blame, Jennie," said he. "You 
 know that at any time I d have given any 
 thing anything " 
 
 "And even now," said Jennie, taking 
 advantage of his depleted stock of words, "while 
 we roam beyond the Milky Way, we aren t 
 getting any votes for me for county superin 
 tendent." 
 
 Jim said nothing. He was quite, quite 
 reestablished on the earth. 
 
 "Don t you want me to be elected, Jim?" 
 
70 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 Jim seemed to ponder this for some time a 
 period of taking the matter under advisement 
 which caused Jennie to drop his arm and busy 
 herself with her skirts. 
 
 "Yes," said Jim, at last; "of course I do." 
 
 Nothing more was said until they reached 
 the schoolhouse door. 
 
 "Well," said Jennie rather indignantly, "I m 
 glad there are plenty of voters who are more 
 enthusiastic about me than you seem to be!" 
 
 More interesting to a keen observer than 
 the speeches, were the unusual things in the 
 room itself. To be sure, there were on the 
 blackboards exercises and outlines, of lessons 
 in language, history, mathematics, geography 
 and the like. But these were not the usual 
 things taken from text-books. The problems in 
 arithmetic were calculations as to the feeding 
 value of various rations for live stock, records 
 of laying hens and computation as to the excess 
 of value in eggs produced over the cost of feed. 
 Pinned to the wall were market reports on all 
 sorts of farm products, and especially numerous 
 were the statistics on the prices of cream and 
 butter. There were files of farm papers piled 
 
JIM TALKS THE WEATHER COLD 71 
 
 about, and racks of agricultural bulletins. In 
 one corner of the room was a typewriting ma 
 chine, and in another a sewing machine. Parts 
 of an old telephone were scattered about on 
 the teacher s desk. A model of a piggery stood 
 on a shelf, done in cardboard. Instead of the 
 usual collection of text-books in the desk, there 
 were hectograph copies of exercises, reading 
 lessons, arithmetical tables and essays on 
 various matters relating to agriculture, all of 
 which were accounted for by two or three 
 hand-made hectographs a very fair sort of 
 printing plant lying on a table. The members 
 of the school board were there, looking on 
 these evidences of innovation with wonder and 
 more or less disfavor. Things were disorderly. 
 The text-books recently adopted by the board 
 against some popular protest had evidently 
 been pitched, neck and crop, out of the school 
 by the man whom Bonner had termed a dub. 
 It was a sort of contempt for the powers 
 that be. 
 
 Colonel Woodruff was in the chair. After 
 the speechifying was over, and the stereotyped, 
 
72 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 though rather illogical, appeal had been made 
 for voters of the one party to cast the straight 
 ticket, and for those of the other faction to 
 scratch, the colonel rose to adjourn the meeting. 
 
 Newton Bronson, safely concealed behind 
 taller people, called out, "Jim Irwin! speech!" 
 
 There was a giggle, a slight sensation, and 
 many voices joined in the call for the new 
 schoolmaster. 
 
 Colonel Woodruff felt the unwisdom of 
 ignoring the demand. Probably he relied upon 
 Jim s discretion and expected a declination. 
 
 Jim arose, seedy and lank, and the voices 
 ceased, save for another suppressed titter. 
 
 "I don t know," said Jim, "whether this call 
 upon me is a joke or not. If it is, it isn t a 
 practical one, for I can t talk. I don t care 
 much about parties or politics. I don t know 
 whether I m a Democrat, a Republican or a 
 Populist." 
 
 This caused a real sensation. The nerve of 
 the fellow! Really, it must in justice be said, 
 Jim was losing himself in a desire to tell his 
 true feelings. He forgot all about Jennie and 
 
JIM TALKS THE WEATHER COLD 73 
 
 her candidacy about everything except his 
 real, true feelings. This proves that he was no 
 politician. 
 
 "I don t see much in this county campaign 
 that interests me/ he went on and Jennie 
 Woodruff reddened, while her seasoned father 
 covered his mouth with his hand to conceal a 
 smile. "The politicians come out into the farm 
 ing districts every campaign and get us hay 
 seeds for anything they want. They always 
 have got us. They ve got us again! They 
 give us clodhoppers the glad hand, a cheap 
 cigar, and a cheaper smile after election ; and 
 that s all. I know it, you all know it, they 
 know it. I don t blame them so very much. 
 The trouble is we don t ask them to do anything 
 better. I want a new kind of rural school; 
 but I don t see any prospect, no matter how 
 this election goes, for any change in them. We 
 in the Woodruff District will have to work out 
 our own salvation. Our political ring never ll 
 do anything but the old things. They don t 
 want to, and they haven t sense enough to do 
 it if they did. That s all and I don t suppose 
 I should have said as much as I have!" 
 
74 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 There was stark silence for a moment when he 
 sat down, and then as many cheers for Jim as 
 for the principal speaker of the evening, cheers 
 mingled with titters and catcalls. Jim felt a 
 good deal as he had done when he knocked 
 down Mr. Dilly s chauffeur rather degraded 
 and humiliated, as if he had made an ass of 
 himself. And as he walked out of the door, 
 the future county superintendent passed by 
 him in high displeasure, and walked home with 
 some one else. 
 
 Jim found the weather much colder than it 
 had been while coming. He really needed an 
 Eskimo s fur suit. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE NEW WINE 
 
 IN the little strip of forest which divided the 
 sown from the Iowa sown wandered two 
 boys in earnest converse. They seemed to be 
 Boy Trappers, and from their backloads of 
 steel-traps one of them might have been Frank 
 Merriwell, and the other Dead-Shot Dick. 
 However, though it was only mid-December, 
 and the fur of all wild varmints was at its 
 primest, they were bringing their traps into the 
 settlements, instead of taking them afield. 
 "The settlements" were represented by the 
 ruinous dwelling of the Simmses, and the boy 
 who resembled Frank Merriwell was Raymond 
 Simms. The other, who was much more bar 
 barously accoutered, whose overalls were 
 fringed, who wore a cartridge belt about his 
 person, and carried hatchet, revolver, and a 
 long knife with a deerfoot handle, and who so 
 
 75 
 
76 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 studiously looked like Dead-Shot Dick, was our 
 old friend of the road gang, Newton Bronson. 
 On the right, on the left, a few rods would 
 have brought the boys out upon the levels of 
 rich corn-fields, and in sight of the long rows 
 of cottonwoods, willows, box-elders and soft 
 maples along the straight roads, and of the huge 
 red barns, each of which possessed a numerous 
 progeny of outbuildings, among which the 
 dwelling held a dubious headship. But here, 
 they could be the Boy Trappers a thin fringe 
 of bushes and trees made of the little valley a 
 forest to the imagination of the boys. Newton 
 put down his load, and sat upon a stump to 
 rest. 
 
 Raymond Simms was dimly conscious of a 
 change in Newton since the day when they 
 met and helped select Colonel Woodruff s next 
 year s seed corn. Newton s mother had a 
 mother s confidence that Newton was now a 
 good boy, who had been led astray by other 
 boys, but had reformed. Jim Irwin had a 
 distinct feeling of optimism. Newton had quit 
 tobacco and beer, casually stating to Jim that 
 he was "in training." Since Jim had shown 
 
THE NEW WINE 77 
 
 his ability to administer a knockout to that 
 angry chauffeur, he seemed to this hobbledehoy 
 peculiarly a proper person for athletic confi 
 dences. Newton s mind seemed gradually 
 filling up with interests that displaced the 
 psychological complex out of which oozed the 
 bad stories and filthy allusion. Jim attributed 
 much of this to the clear mountain atmosphere 
 which surrounded Raymond Simms, the 
 ignorant barbarian driven out of his native 
 hills by a feud. Raymond was of the open 
 spaces, and refused to hear fetid things that 
 seemed out of place in them. There was a 
 dignity which impressed Newton, in the blank 
 gaze with which Raymond greeted Newton s 
 sallies that were wont to set the village pool 
 room in a roar ; but how could you have a fuss 
 with a feller who knew all about trapping, who 
 had seen a man shot, who had shot a bear, who 
 had killed wild turkeys, who had trapped a 
 hundred dollars worth of furs in one winter, 
 who knew the proper "sets" for all fur-bearing 
 animals, and whom you liked, and who liked 
 you? 
 
 As the reason for Newton s improvement in 
 
78 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 manner of living, Raymond, out of his own 
 experience, would have had no hesitation in 
 naming the school and the schoolmaster. 
 
 "I wouldn t go back on a friend," said New 
 ton, seated on the stump with his traps on the 
 ground at his feet, "the way you re going back 
 on me. 7 
 
 "You got no call to talk thataway," replied 
 the mountain boy. "How m I goin back on 
 you?" 
 
 "We was goin to trap all winter," 
 asseverated Newton, "and next winter we were 
 giin up in the north woods together." 
 
 "You know," said Raymond somberly, "that 
 we cain t run any trap line and do whut we 
 got to do to he p Mr. Jim." 
 
 Newton sat mute as one having no rejoinder. 
 
 "Mr. Jim," went on Raymond, "needs all the 
 he p every kid in this settlement kin give him. 
 He s the best friend I ever had. I m a pore 
 ignerant boy, an he teaches me how to do 
 things that will make me something." 
 
 "Darn it all !" said Newton. 
 
 "You know," said Raymond, "that you d 
 
THE NEW WINE 79 
 
 think mahgty small of me, if I d desert Mr. Jim 
 Irwin." 
 
 "Well, then," replied Newton, seizing his 
 traps and throwing them across his shoulder, 
 "come on with the traps, and shut up ! What ll 
 we do when the school board gets Jennie Wood 
 ruff to revoke his certificate and make him quit 
 teachin , hey?" 
 
 "Nobody ll eveh do that," said Raymond. "I d 
 set in the schoolhouse do* with my rifle and 
 shoot anybody that d come to th ow Mr. Jim 
 outen the school." 
 
 "Not in this country," said Newton. "This 
 ain t a gun country." 
 
 "But it orto be either a justice kentry, or a 
 gun kentry," replied the mountain boy. "It 
 stands to reason it must be one r the otheh, 
 Newton." 
 
 "No, it don t, neither," said Newton dog 
 matically. 
 
 "Why should they th ow Mr. Jim outen the 
 school?" inquired Raymond. "Ain t he teachin 
 us right?" 
 
 Newton explained for the tenth time that his 
 
80 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 father, Mr. Con Bonner and Mr. Haakon Peter 
 son had not meant to hire Jim Irwin at all, but 
 each had voted for him so that he might have 
 one vote. They were all against him from the 
 first, but they had not known how to get rid 
 of him. Now, however, Jim had done so many 
 things that no teacher was supposed to do, and 
 had left undone so many things that teachers 
 were bound by custom to perform, that New 
 ton s father and Mr. Bonner and Mr. Peterson 
 had made up up their minds that they would call 
 upon him to resign, and if he wouldn t, they 
 would "turn him out" in some way. And the 
 best way if they could do it, would be to induce 
 County Superintendent Woodruff, who didn t 
 like Jim since the speech he made at the po 
 litical meeting, to revoke his certificate. 
 
 "What wrong s he done committed?" asked 
 Raymond. "I don t know what teachers air 
 supposed to do in this kentry, but Mr. Jim 
 seems to be the only shore-enough teacher I 
 ever see!" 
 
 "He don t teach out of the books the school 
 board adopted," replied Newton. 
 
THE NEW WINE 81 
 
 "But he makes up better lessons," urged Ray 
 mond. "An" all the things we do in school, 
 he ps us make a livin ." 
 
 "He begins at eight in the mornin ," said 
 Newton, "an* he has some of us there till half 
 past five, and comes back in the evening. And 
 every Saturday, some of the kids are doin 
 something at the schoolhouse." 
 
 "They don t pay him for overtime, do they?" 
 queried Raymond. "Well, then, they orto, 
 instid of turnin him out!" 
 
 "Well, they ll turn him out!" prophesied 
 Newton. "I m havin more fun in school than 
 I ever an that s why I m with you on this 
 quittin trapping but they ll get Jim, all 
 right!" 
 
 "I m having something betteh n fun," replied 
 Raymond. "My pap has never understood this 
 kentry, an we-all has had bad times hyeh ; but 
 Mr. Jim an I have studied out how I can make 
 a betteh livin next year and pap says we kin 
 go on the way Mr. Jim says. I ll work for 
 Colonel Woodruff a part of the time, an pap 
 kin make corn in the biggest field. It seems 
 we didn t do our work right last year an in 
 
82 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 a couple of years, with the increase of the 
 hawgs, an the land we kin get under plow . ., 
 
 99 
 
 ! . 
 
 Raymond was off on his pet dream of becom 
 ing something better than the oldest of the 
 Simms tribe of outcasts, and Newton was sub 
 consciously impressed by the fact that never 
 for a moment did Raymond s plans fail to in 
 clude the elevation with him of Calista and 
 Jinnie and Buddy and Pap and Mam. It was 
 taken for granted that the Simmses sank or 
 swam together, whether their antagonists were 
 poverty and ignorance, or their ancient foes, 
 the Hobdays. Newton drew closer to Ray 
 mond s side. 
 
 It was still an hour before nine when the 
 rural school traditionally "takes up" when 
 the boys had stored their traps in a shed at the 
 Bronson home, and walked on to the school- 
 house. That rather scabby and weathered 
 edifice was already humming with industry of 
 a sort. In spite of the hostility of the school 
 board, and the aloofness of the patrons of the 
 school, the pupils were clearly interested in 
 Jim Irwin s system of rural education. Never 
 
THE NEW WINE 83 
 
 had the attendance been so large or regular; 
 and one of the reasons for sessions before nine 
 and after four was the inability of the teacher 
 to attend to the needs of his charges in the 
 five and a half hours called "school hours." 
 
 This, however, was not the sole reason. It 
 was the new sort of work which commanded 
 the attention of Eaymond and Newton as they 
 entered. This morning, Jim had arranged in 
 various sorts of dishes specimens of grain and 
 grass seeds. By each was a card bearing the 
 name of the farm from which one of the older 
 boys or girls had brought it. "Wheat, Scotch 
 Fife, from the farm of Columbus Smith." 
 "Timothy, or Herd s Grass, from the farm of 
 A. B. Talcott." "Alsike Clover, from the farm 
 of B. B. Hamm." Each lot was in a small cloth 
 bag which had been made by one of the little 
 girls as a sewing exercise; and each card had 
 been written as a lesson in penmanship by one 
 of the younger pupils, and contained, in addi 
 tion to the data above mentioned, heads under 
 which to enter the number of grains of the 
 seed examined, the number which grew, the 
 percentage of viability, the number of alien 
 
84 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 seeds of weeds and other sorts, the names of 
 these adulterants, the weight of true and 
 vitalized, and of foul and alien and dead seeds, 
 the value per bushel in the local market of the 
 seeds under test, and the real market values 
 of the samples, after dead seeds and alien 
 matter had been subtracted. 
 
 "Now get busy, here," cried Jim Irwin. 
 "We re late! Raymond, you ve a quick eye 
 you count seeds and you, Calista, and Mary 
 Smith and mind, next year s crop may depend 
 on making no mistakes !" 
 
 "Mistakes!" scoffed Mary Smith, a dumpy 
 girl of fourteen. "We don t make mistakes 
 any more, teacher." 
 
 It was a frolic, rather than a task. All had 
 come with a perfect understanding that this 
 early attendance was quite illegal, and not to 
 be required of them but they came. 
 
 "Newt," suggested Jim, "get busy on the 
 percentage problems for that second class in 
 arithmetic." 
 
 "Sure," said Newt. "Let s see .... Good 
 seed is the base, and bad seed and dead seed 
 the percentage find the rate . . . . " 
 
THE NEW WINE 85 
 
 "Oh, you know!" said Jim. "Make them 
 easy arid plain and as many as you can get 
 out and be sure that you name the farm every 
 pop!" 
 
 "Got you!" answered Newton, and in a fine 
 frenzy went at the job of creating a text-book 
 in arithmetic. 
 
 "Buddy," said Jim, patting the youngest 
 Simms on the head, "you and Virginia can 
 print the reading lessons this morning, can t 
 you?" 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Jim," answered both McGeehee 
 Simms and his sister cheerily. "Where s the 
 copy?" 
 
 "Here," answered the teacher, handing each 
 a typewritten sheet for use as the original from 
 which the young mountaineers were to make 
 hectograph copies, "and mind you make good 
 copies! Bettina Hansen pretty nearly cried 
 last night because she had to write them over 
 so many times on the typewriter before she 
 got them all right." 
 
 The reading lesson was an article on corn 
 condensed from a farm paper, and a selection 
 from Hiawatha the Indian-corn myth. 
 
86 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "We ll be careful, Mr. Jim," said Buddy. 
 
 Half past eight, and only half an hour until 
 school would officially be "called." 
 
 Newton Bronson was writing in aniline ink 
 for the hectographs, such problems as these: 
 
 "If Mr. Ezra Bronson s seed wheat carries 
 in each 250 grains, ten cockle grains, fifteen 
 rye grains, twenty fox-tail seeds, three iron- 
 weed seeds, two wild oats grains, twenty-seven 
 wild buckwheat seeds, one wild morning-glory 
 seed, and eighteen lamb s quarter seeds, what 
 percentage of the seeds sown is wheat, and 
 what foul seed?" 
 
 "If in each 250 grains of wheat in Mr. 
 Bronson s bins, 30 are cracked, dead or other 
 wise not capable of sprouting, what per cent, 
 of the seed sown will grow?" 
 
 "If the foul seed and dead wheat amount to 
 one-eighth by weight of the mass, what did 
 Mr. Bronson pay per bushel for the good wheat, 
 if it cost him $1.10 in the bin, and what per 
 cent, did he lose by the adulterations and the 
 poor wheat?" 
 
 Jim ran over these rapidly. "Your mathe 
 matics is good, Newton," said the schoolmaster, 
 
THE NEW WINE 87 
 
 "but if you expect to pass in penmanship, you ll 
 have to take more pains." 
 
 "How about the grammar?" asked Newton. 
 "The writing is pretty bad, I ll own up." 
 
 "The grammar is good this morning. You re 
 gradually mastering the art of stating a prob 
 lem in arithmetic in English and that s im 
 provement." 
 
 The hands of Jim Irwin s dollar watch 
 gradually approached the position indicating 
 nine o clock at which time the schoolmaster 
 rapped on his desk and the school came to 
 order. Then, for a while, it became like other 
 schools. A glance over the room enabled him 
 to enter the names of the absentees, and those 
 tardy. There was a song by the school, the 
 recitation in concert of Little Brown Hands, 
 some general remarks and directions by the 
 teacher, and the primary pupils came forward 
 for their reading exercises. A few classes be 
 gan poring over their text-books, but most of 
 the pupils had their work passed out to them in 
 the form of hectograph copies of exercises 
 prepared in the school itself. 
 
 As the little ones finished their recitations, 
 
88 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 they passed to the dishes of wheat, and began 
 aiding Raymond s squad in the counting and 
 classifying of the various seeds. They counted 
 to five, and they counted the fives. They 
 laughed in a subdued way, and whispered con 
 stantly, but nobody seemed disturbed. 
 
 "Do they help much, Calista?" asked the 
 teacher, as the oldest Simms girl came to his 
 desk for more wheat. 
 
 "No, seh, not much," replied Calista, beam 
 ing, "but they don t hold us back any and 
 maybe they do he p a little." 
 
 "That s good," said Jim, "and they enjoy 
 it, don t they?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, Mr. Jim," assented Calista, "and 
 the way Buddy is learnin to count is fine! 
 They-all will soon know all the addition they 
 is, and a lot of multiplication. Angie Talcott 
 knows the kinds of seeds better n what I do!" 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AND THE OLD BOTTLES 
 
 >TpHE day passed. Four o clock came. In 
 * order that all might reach home for supper, 
 there was no staying, except that Newt Bron- 
 son and Raymond Simms remained to sweep 
 and dust the schoolroom, and prepare kindling 
 for the next morning s fire a work they had 
 taken upon themselves, so as to enable the 
 teacher to put on the blackboards such outlines 
 for the morrow s class work as might be re 
 quired. Jim was writing on the board a list 
 of words constituting a spelling exercise. They 
 were not from the text-book, but grew naturally 
 out of the study of the seed wheat "cockle/* 
 "morning-glory," "convolvulus," "viable," "via 
 bility," "sprouting," "iron-weed" and the like. 
 A tap was heard at the door, and Raymond 
 Simms opened it. 
 
 In filed three women and Jim Irwin knew 
 89 
 
90 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 as he looked at them that he was greeting a 
 deputation, and felt that it meant a struggle. 
 For they were the wives of the members of 
 the school board. He placed for them the three 
 available chairs, and in the absence of any for 
 himself remained standing before them, a gaunt 
 shabby-looking revolutionist at the bar of 
 settled usage and fixed public opinion. 
 
 Mrs. Haakon Peterson was a tall blonde 
 woman who, when she spoke betrayed her 
 Scandinavian origin by the northern burr to 
 her "r s," and a slight difficulty with her "j s," 
 her "y s" and long "a s." She was slow-spoken 
 and dignified, and Jim felt an instinctive re 
 spect for her personality. Mrs. Bronson was 
 a good motherly woman, noted for her 
 housekeeping, and for her church activities. 
 She looked oftener at her son, and his friend 
 Raymond than at the schoolmaster. Mrs. Bon- 
 ner was the most voluble of the three, and was 
 the only one who shook hands with Jim; but 
 in spite of her rather offhand manner, Jim 
 sensed in the little, black-eyed Irishwoman the 
 real commander of the expedition against 
 him for such he knew it to be. 
 

 
 
 They were the wives of the members of the school board 
 
AND THE OLD BOTTLES 91 
 
 "You may think it strange of us coming 
 after hours," said she, "but we wanted to 
 speak to you, teacher, without the children 
 here." 
 
 "I wish more of the parents would call," 
 said Jim. "At any hour of the day." 
 
 "Or night either, I dare say," suggested Mrs. 
 Bonner. "I hear you ve the scholars here at 
 all hours, Jim." 
 
 Jim smiled his slow patient smile. 
 
 "We do break the union rules, I guess, Mrs. 
 Bonner," said he; "there seems to be more to 
 do than we can get done during school 
 hours." 
 
 "What right have ye," struck in Mrs. Bonner, 
 "to be burning the district s fuel, and wearing 
 out the school s property out of hours like 
 that not that it s anny of my business," she 
 interposed, hastily, as if she had been diverted 
 from her chosen point of attack. "I just 
 thought of it, that s all. What we came for, 
 Mr. Irwin, is to object to the way the teachin s 
 being done corn and wheat, and hogs and the 
 like, instead of the learnin schools was made 
 to teach." 
 
92 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "Schools were made to prepare children for 
 life, weren t they, Mrs. Bonner?" 
 
 "To be sure," went on Mrs. Bonner, "I can 
 see an* the whole district can see that it s 
 easier for a man that s been a farm-hand to 
 teach farm-hand knowledge, than the learnin 
 schools was set up to teach; but if so be he 
 hasn t the book education to do the right thing, 
 we think he should get out and give a real 
 teacher a chance." 
 
 "What am I neglecting?" asked Jim mildly. 
 
 Mrs. Bonner seemed unprepared for the 
 question, and sat for an instant mute. Mrs. 
 Peterson interposed her attack while Mrs. Bon 
 ner might be recovering her wind. 
 
 "We people that have had a hard time," she 
 said in a precise way which seemed to show 
 that she knew exactly what she wanted, "want 
 to give our boys and girls a chance to live 
 easier lives than we lived. We don t want our 
 children taught about nothing but work. We 
 want higher things." 
 
 "Mrs. Peterson," said Jim earnestly, "we 
 must have first things first. Making a living 
 is the first thing and the highest" 
 
AND THE OLD BOTTLES 93 
 
 "Haakon and I will look after making a 
 living for our family," said she. "We want 
 our children to learn nice things, and go to 
 high school, and after a while to the Juniwer- 
 sity." 
 
 "And I," declared Jim, "will send out from 
 this school, if you will let me, pupils better 
 prepared for higher schools than have ever 
 gone from it because they will be trained to 
 think in terms of action. They will go knowing 
 that thoughts must always be linked with 
 things. Aren t your children happy in school, 
 Mrs. Peterson?" 
 
 "I don t send them to school to be happy, 
 Yim," replied Mrs. Peterson, calling him by 
 the name most familiarly known to all of them ; 
 "I send them to learn to be higher people than 
 their father and mother. That s what America 
 means !" 
 
 "They ll be higher people higher than their 
 parents higher than their teacher they ll be 
 efficient farmers, and efficient farmers wives. 
 They ll be happy, because they will know how 
 to use more brains in farming than any lawyer 
 or doctor or merchant can possibly use in his 
 
94 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 business. I m educating them to find an outlet 
 for genius in farming!" 
 
 "It s a fine thing," said Mrs. Bonner, coming 
 to the aid of her fellow soldiers, "to work hard 
 for a lifetime, an* raise nothing but a family 
 of farmers ! A fine thing !" 
 
 "They will be farmers anyhow," cried Jim, 
 "in spite of your efforts- ninety out of every 
 hundred of them ! And of the other ten, nine 
 will be wage-earners in the cities, and wish to 
 God they were back on the farm; and the 
 hundredth one will succeed in the city. Shall 
 we educate the ninety-and-nine to fail, that the 
 hundredth, instead of enriching the rural life 
 with his talents, may steal them away to make 
 the city stronger? It is already too strong 
 for us farmers. Shall we drive our best away 
 to make it stronger?" 
 
 The guns of Mrs. Bonner and Mrs. Peterson 
 were silenced for a moment, and Mrs. Bronson, 
 after gazing about at the typewriter, the hecto 
 graph, the exhibits of weed seeds, the Babcock 
 milk tester, and the other unscholastic equip 
 ment, pointed to the list of words, and the 
 arithmetic problems on the board. 
 
AND THE OLD BOTTLES 95 
 
 "Do you get them words from the speller?" 
 she asked. 
 
 "No," said he, "we got them from a lesson on 
 seed wheat." 
 
 "Did them examples come out of an arithme 
 tic book?" cross-examined she. 
 
 "No," said Jim, "we used problems we made 
 ourselves. We were figuring profits and losses 
 on your cows, Mrs. Bronson !" 
 
 "Ezra Bronson," said Mrs. Bronson loftily, 
 "don t need any help in telling what s a good 
 cow. He was farming before you was born!" 
 
 "Like fun, he don t need help! He s going 
 to dry old Cherry off and fatten her for beef; 
 and he can make more money on the cream by 
 beefing about three more of em. The Babcock 
 test shows they re just boarding on us without 
 paying their board !" 
 
 The delegation of matrons ruffled like a group 
 of startled hens at this interposition, which 
 was Newton Bronson s effective seizing of the 
 opportunity to issue a progress bulletin in the 
 research work on the Bronson dairy herd. 
 
 "Newton !" said his mother, "don t interrupt 
 me when I m talking to the teacher!" 
 
96 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "Well, then," said Newton, "don t tell the 
 teacher that pa knew which cows were good 
 and which were poor. If any one in this 
 district wants to know about their cows they ll 
 have to come to this shop. And I can tell you 
 that it ll pay em to come too, if they re going 
 to make anything selling cream. Wait until 
 we get out our reports on the herds, ma!" 
 
 The women were rather stampeded by this 
 onslaught of the irregular troops especially 
 Mrs. Bronson. She was placed in the position 
 of a woman taking a man s wisdom from her 
 ne er-do-well son for the first time in her life. 
 Like any other mother in this position, she 
 felt a flutter of pride but it was strongly 
 mingled with a motherly desire to spank him. 
 The deputation rose, with a unanimous feeling 
 tliat they had been scored upon. 
 
 "Cows !" scoffed Mrs. Peterson. "If we leave 
 you in this yob, Mr. Irwin, our children will 
 know nothing but cows and hens and soils and 
 grains and where will the culture come in? 
 How will our boys and girls appear when we 
 get fixed so we can move to town? We won t 
 have no culture at all, Yim!" 
 
AND THE OLD BOTTLES 97 
 
 "Culture!" exclaimed Jim. "Why why, 
 after ten years of the sort of school I would 
 give you if I were a better teacher, and could 
 have my way, the people of the cities would 
 be begging to have their children admitted so 
 that they might obtain real culture culture 
 fitting them for life in the twentieth cen 
 tury" 
 
 "Don t bother to get ready for the city 
 children, Jim," said Mrs. Bonner sneeringly, 
 "you won t be teaching the Woodruff school 
 that long." 
 
 All this time, the dark-faced Cracker had 
 been glooming from a corner, earnestly seeking 
 to fathom the wrongness he sensed in the 
 gathering. Now he came forward. 
 
 "I reckon I may be making a mistake to say 
 anything," said he, "f r we-all is strangers 
 hyeh, an we re pore; but I must speak out 
 for Mr. Jim I must! Don t turn him out, 
 folks, f r he s done mo f r us than eveh any 
 one done in the world !" 
 
 "What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Peterson. 
 
 "I mean," said Raymond, "that when Mr. Jim 
 began talking school to us, we was a pore 
 
98 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 no- count lot without any learnin , with nothin 
 to talk about except our wrongs, an* our ene 
 mies, and the meanness of the Iowa folks. 
 You see we didn t understand you-all. An 
 now, we have hope. We done got hope from 
 this school. We re goin to make good in the 
 world. We re getting education. We re all 
 learnin to use books. My little sister will be 
 as good as anybody, if you ll just let Mr. Jim 
 alone in this school as good as any one. An 
 I ll he p pap get a farm, and we ll work and 
 think at the same time, an be happy!" 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 JENNIE ARRANGES A CHRISTMAS PARTY 
 
 npHE great party magnates who made up the 
 * tickets from governor down to the lowest 
 county office, doubtless regarded the little po 
 litical plum shaken off into the apron of Miss 
 Jennie Woodruff of the Woodruff District, as 
 the very smallest and least bloomy of all the 
 plums on the tree ; but there is something which 
 tends to puff one up in the mere fact of having 
 received the votes of the people for any office, 
 especially in a region of high average civiliza 
 tion, covering six hundred or seven hundred 
 square miles of good American domain. Jennie 
 was a sensible country girl. Being sensible, 
 she tried to avoid uppishness. But she did feel 
 some little sense of increased importance as she 
 drove her father s little one-cylinder runabout 
 over the smooth earth roads, in the crisp De 
 cember weather, just before Christmas. 
 
 99 
 
100 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 The weather itself was stimulating, and she 
 was making rapid progress in the management 
 of the little car which her father had offered 
 to lend her for use in visiting the one hundred 
 or more rural schools soon to come under her 
 supervision. She rather fancied the picture 
 of herself, clothed in more or less authority and 
 queening it over her little army of teachers. 
 
 Mr. Haakon Peterson was phlegmatically 
 conscious that she made rather an agreeable 
 picture, as she stopped her car alongside his 
 top buggy to talk with him. She had bright 
 blue eyes, fluffy brown hair, a complexion 
 whipped pink by the breeze, and she smiled 
 at him ingratiatingly. 
 
 "Don t you think father is lovely?" said she. 
 "He is going to let me use the runabout when 
 I visit the schools." 
 
 "That will be good," said Haakon. "It will 
 save you lots of time. I hope you make the 
 county pay for the gasoline." 
 
 "I haven t thought about that," said Jennie. 
 "Everybody s been so nice to me I want to 
 give as well as receive." 
 
 "Why," said Haakon, "you will yust begin 
 
A CHRISTMAS PARTY 101 
 
 to receive when your salary begins in Yan- 
 uary." 
 
 "Oh, no!" said Jennie. "I ve received much 
 more than that now! You don t know how 
 proud I feel. So many nice men I never knew 
 before, and all my old friends like you working 
 for me in the convention and at the polls, just 
 as if I amounted to something." 
 
 "And you don t know how proud I feel," 
 said Haakon, "to have in county office a little 
 girl I used to hold on my lap." 
 
 In early times, when Haakon was a flat- 
 capped immigrant boy, he had earned the initial 
 payment on his first eighty acres of prairie 
 land as a hired man on Colonel Woodruff s 
 farm. Now he was a rather richer man than 
 the colonel, and not a little proud of his ascent 
 to affluence. He was a mild-spoken, soft- voiced 
 Scandinavian, quite completely Americanized, 
 and possessed of that aptitude for local poli 
 tics which makes so good a citizen of the Nor 
 wegian and Swede. His influence was always 
 worth fifty to sixty Scandinavian votes in any 
 county election. He was a good party man 
 and conscious of being entitled to his voice 
 
102 THE BKOWN MOUSE 
 
 in party matters. This seemed to him an op 
 portunity for exerting a bit of political 
 influence. 
 
 "Yennie," said he, "this man Yim Irwin 
 needs to be lined up." 
 
 "Lined up! What do you mean?" 
 
 "The way he is doing in the school," said 
 Haakon, "is all wrong. If you can t line him 
 up, he will make you trouble. We must look 
 ahead. Everybody has his friends, and Yim 
 Irwin has his friends. If you have trouble 
 with him, his friends will be against you when 
 we want to nominate you for a second term. 
 The county is getting close. If we go to con- 
 wention without your home delegation it would 
 weaken you, and if we nominate you, every 
 piece of trouble like this cuts down your wote. 
 You ought to line him up and have him do 
 right." 
 
 "But he is so funny," said Jennie. 
 
 "He likes you," said Haakon. "You can line 
 him up." 
 
 Jennie blushed, and to conceal her slight em 
 barrassment, got out for the purpose of crank 
 ing her machine. 
 
A CHRISTMAS PARTY 103 
 
 "But if I can not line him up?" said she. 
 
 "I tank," said Haakon, "if you can t line him 
 up, you will have a chance to rewoke his cer 
 tificate when you take office." 
 
 So Jim Irwin was to be crushed like an in 
 sect. The little local gearing of the big party 
 machine was to crush him. Jennie dimly sensed 
 the tragedy of it, but very dimly. Mainly she 
 thought of Mr. Peterson s suggestion as to 
 "lining up" Jim Irwin as so thoroughly sensi 
 ble that she gave it a good deal of thought that 
 day. She could not help feeling a little resent 
 ment at Jim for following his own fads and 
 fancies so far. We always resent the necessity 
 of crushing any weak creature which must 
 needs be wiped out. The idea that there could 
 be anything fundamentally sane in his over* 
 turning of the old and tried school methods^ 
 under which both he and she had been edu 
 cated, was absurd to Jennie. To be sure, every 
 body had always favored "more practical edu 
 cation," and Jim s farm arithmetic, farm phys 
 iology, farm reading and writing, cow-testing 
 exercises, seed analysis, corn clubs and the to 
 mato, poultry and pig clubs he proposed to 
 
104 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 have in operation the next summer, seemed 
 highly practical ; but to Jennie s mind, the fact 
 that they introduced dissension in the neigh 
 borhood and promised to make her official life 
 vexatious, seemed ample proof that Jim s work 
 was visionary and impractical. Poor Jennie 
 was not aware of the fact that new truth always 
 comes bringing, not peace to mankind, but a 
 sword. 
 
 "Father," said she that night, "let s have a 
 little Christmas party." 
 
 "All right," said the colonel. "Whom shall 
 we invite?" 
 
 "Don t laugh," said she. "I want to invite 
 Jim Irwin and his mother, and nobody else." 
 
 "All right," reiterated the colonel. "But 
 why?" 
 
 "Oh," said Jennie, "I want to see whether I 
 can talk Jim out of some of his foolishness." 
 
 "You want to line him up, do you ?" said the 
 colonel. "Well, that s good politics, and inci 
 dentally, you may get some good ideas out of 
 Jim." 
 
 "Rather unlikely," said Jennie. 
 
 "I don t know about that," said the colonel/ 
 
A CHRISTMAS PARTY 105 
 
 smiling. "I begin to think that Jim s a Brown 
 Mouse. I ve told you about the Brown Mouse, 
 haven t I?" 
 
 "Yes," said Jennie. "You ve told me. But 
 Professor Darbishire s brown mice were simply 
 wild and incorrigible creatures. Just because 
 it happens to emerge suddenly from the forests 
 of heredity, it doesn t prove that the Brown 
 Mouse is any good." 
 
 "Justin Morgan was a Brown Mouse," said 
 the colonel. "And he founded the greatest 
 breed of horses in the world." 
 
 "You say that," said Jennie, "because you re 
 a lover of the Morgan horse." 
 
 "Napoleon Bonaparte was a Brown Mouse," 
 said the colonel. "So was George Washington, 
 and so was Peter the Great. Whenever a 
 Brown Mouse appears he changes things in 
 a little way or a big way." 
 
 "For the better, always?" asked Jennie. 
 
 "No," said the colonel. "The Brown Mouse 
 may throw back to slant-headed savagery. But 
 Jim . . . sometimes I think Jim is the kind of 
 Mendelian segregation out of which we get 
 Franklins and Edisons and their sort. You 
 
106 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 may get some good ideas out of Jim. Let us 
 have them here for Christmas, by all means." 
 In due time Jennie s invitation reached Jim 
 and his mother, like an explosive shell fired 
 from a distance into their humble dwelling 
 quite upsetting things. Twenty-five years con 
 stitute rather a long wait for social recogni 
 tion, and Mrs. Irwin had long since regarded 
 herself as quite outside society. To be sure, 
 for something like half of this period, she 
 had been of society if not in it. She had done 
 the family washings, scrubbings and cleanings, 
 had made the family clothes and been a woman 
 of all work, passing from household to house 
 hold, in an orbit determined by the exigencies 
 of threshing, harvesting, illness and child- 
 bearing. At such times she sat at the family 
 table and participated in the neighborhood gos 
 sip, in quite the manner of a visiting aunt or 
 other female relative; but in spite of the de 
 mocracy of rural life, there is and always has 
 been a social difference between a hired woman 
 and an invited guest. And when Jim, having 
 absorbed everything which the Woodruff school 
 could give him in the way of education, found 
 
A CHRISTMAS PARTY 107 
 
 his first job at "making a hand," Mrs. Irwin, 
 at her son s urgent request, ceased going out 
 to work for a while, until she could get back 
 her strength. This she had never succeeded 
 in doing, and for a dozen years or more had 
 never entered a single one of the houses in 
 which she had formerly served. 
 
 "I can t go, James," said she; "I can t pos 
 sibly go." 
 
 "Oh, yes, you can! Why not?" said Jim. 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "You know I don t go anywhere," urged Mrs. 
 Irwin. 
 
 "That s no reason," said her son. 
 
 "I haven t a thing to wear," said Mrs. Irwin. 
 
 "Nothing to wear!" 
 
 I wonder if any ordinary person can under 
 stand the shock with which Jim Irwin heard 
 those words from his mother s lips. He was 
 approaching thirty, and the association of the 
 ideas of Mother and Costume was foreign to 
 his mind. Other women had surfaces different 
 from hers, to be sure but his mother was not 
 as other women. She was just Mother, always 
 at work in the house or in the garden, always 
 
108 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 doing for him those inevitable things which 
 made up her part in life, always clothed in the 
 browns, grays, gray-blues, neutral stripes and 
 checks which were cheap and common and 
 easily made. Clothes! They were in the Ir- 
 win family no more than things by which the 
 rules of decency were complied with, and the 
 cold of winter turned back but as for their 
 appearance! Jim had never given the thing 
 a thought further than to wear out his Sunday 
 best in the schoolroom, to wonder where the 
 next suit of Sunday best was to come from, 
 and to buy for his mother the cheap and com 
 mon fabrics which she fashioned into the gar 
 ments in which alone, it seemed to him, she 
 would seem like Mother. A boy who lives 
 until he is nearly thirty in intimate compan 
 ionship with Carlyle, Thoreau, Wordsworth, 
 Shakespeare, Emerson, Professor Henry, Lib 
 erty H. Bailey, Cyril Hopkins, Dean Davenport 
 and the great obscurities of the experiment sta 
 tions, may be excused if his views regarding 
 clothes are derived in a transcendental manner 
 from Sartor Resartus and the agricultural col- 
 
A CHRISTMAS PARTY 109 
 
 !ege tests as to the relation between Shelter 
 and Feeding. 
 
 "Why, mother," said he, "I think it would 
 be pretty hard to explain to the Woodruffs that 
 you stayed away because of clothes. They have 
 seen you in the clothes you wear pretty often 
 for the last thirty years !" 
 
 Was a woman ever quite without a costume? 
 
 Mrs. Irwin gazed at vacancy for a while, 
 and went to the old bureau. From the bottom 
 drawer she took an old, old black alpaca dress 
 a dress which Jim had never seen. She 
 spread it out on her bed in the alcove off the 
 combined kitchen, parlor and dining-room in 
 which they lived, and smoothed out the wrin 
 kles. It was almost whole, save for the places 
 where her body, once so much fuller than now, 
 had drawn the threads apart under the arms, 
 and at some of the seams and she handled it 
 as one deals with something very precious. 
 
 "I never thought I d wear it again," said she, 
 "but once. I ve been saving it for my last 
 dress. But I guess it won t hurt to wear it once 
 for the benefit of the living." 
 
110 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 Jim kissed his mother a rare thing, save 
 as the caress was called for by the established 
 custom between them. 
 
 "Don t think of that, mother," said he, "for 
 years and years yet I" 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 HOW JIM WAS LINED UP, 
 
 is no doubt that Jennie Woodruff 
 was justified in thinking that they were a 
 queer couple. They weren t like the Wood 
 ruffs, at all. They were of a different pattern. 
 To be sure, Jim s clothes were not especially 
 noteworthy, being just shiny, and frayed at 
 cuff and instep, and short of sleeve and leg, 
 and ill-fitting and cheap. They betrayed pov 
 erty, and the inability of a New York sweat 
 shop to anticipate the prodigality of Nature in 
 the matter of length of leg and arm, and 
 wealth of bones and joints which she had lav 
 ished upon Jim Irwin. But the Woodruff table 
 had often enjoyed Jim s presence, and the 
 standards prevailing there as to clothes were 
 only those of plain people who eat with their 
 hired men, buy their clothes at a county seat 
 town, and live simply and sensibly on the fat 
 111 
 
112 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 of the land. Jim s queerness lay not so much 
 in his clothes as in his personality. 
 
 On the other hand, Jennie could not help 
 thinking that Mrs. Irwin s queerness was to be 
 found almost solely in her clothes. The black 
 alpaca looked undeniably respectable, espe 
 cially when it was helped out by a curious old 
 brooch of goldstone, bordered with flowers in 
 blue and white and red and green tiny blos 
 soms of little stones which looked like the 
 flowers which grow at the snow line on Pike s 
 Peak. Jennie felt that it must be a cheap af 
 fair, but it was decorative, and she wondered 
 where Mrs. Irwin got it. She guessed it must 
 have a story a story in which the stooped, 
 rusty, somber old lady looked like a character 
 drawn to harmonize with the period just after 
 the war. For the black alpaca dress looked 
 more like a costume for a masquerade than a 
 present-day garment, and Mrs. Irwin was so 
 oppressed with doubt as to whether she was 
 presentable, with knowledge that her dress 
 didn t fit, and with the difficulty of behaving 
 naturally like a convict just discharged from 
 prison after a ten years term that she took 
 
HOW JIM WAS LINED UP 113 
 
 on a stiffness of deportment quite in keeping 
 with the idea that she was a female Rip Van 
 Winkle not yet quite awake. But Jennie had 
 the keenness to see that if Mrs. Irwin could 
 have had an up-to-date costume she would have 
 become a rather ordinary and not bad-looking 
 old lady. What Jennie failed to divine was 
 that if Jim could have invested a hundred dol 
 lars in the services of tailors, haberdashers, 
 barbers and other specialists in personal ap 
 pearance, and could for this hour or so have 
 blotted out his record as her father s field-hand, 
 he would have seemed to her a distinguished- 
 looking young man. Not handsome, of course, 
 but the sort people look after and follow. 
 
 "Come to dinner," said Mrs. Woodruff, who 
 at this juncture had a hired girl, but was yoked 
 to the oar nevertheless when it came to turkey 
 and the other fixings of a Christmas dinner. 
 "It s good enough, what there is of it, and 
 there s enough of it such as it is but the dress 
 ing in the turkey would be better for a little 
 more sage!" 
 
 The bountiful meal piled mountain high for 
 guest and hired help and family melted away 
 
114 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 in a manner to delight the hearts of Mrs. 
 Woodruff and Jennie. The colonel, in stiff 
 starched shirt, black tie and frock coat, carved 
 with much empressement, and Jim felt almost 
 for the first time a sense of the value of man 
 ner. 
 
 "I had bigger turkeys," said Mrs. Woodruff 
 to Mrs. Irwin, "but I thought it would be bet 
 ter to cook two turkey-hens instead of one 
 great big gobbler with meat as tough as tripe 
 and stuffed full of fat." 
 
 "One of the hens would a* been plenty," re 
 plied Mrs. Irwin. "How much did they 
 weigh?" 
 
 "About fifteen pounds apiece," was the an 
 swer. "The gobbler would a weighed thirty, 
 I guess. He s pure Mammoth Bronze." 
 
 "I wish," said Jim, "that we could get a few 
 breeding birds of the wild bronze turkeys from 
 Mexico." 
 
 "Why?" asked the colonel. 
 
 "They re the original blood of the domestic 
 bronze turkeys," said Jim, "and they re bigger 
 and handsomer than the pure-bred bronzes, 
 even. They re a better stock than the northern 
 
HOW JIM WAS LINED UP 115 
 
 wild turkeys from which our common birds 
 originated." 
 
 "Where do you learn all these things, Jim?" 
 asked Mrs. Woodruff. "I declare, I often tell 
 Woodruff that it s as good as a lecture to have 
 Jim Irwin at table. My intelligence has fallen 
 since you quit working here, Jim." 
 
 There came into Jim s eyes the gleam of the 
 man devoted to a Cause and the dinner tended 
 to develop into a lecture. Jennie saw a little 
 more plainly wherein his queerness lay. 
 
 "There s an education in any meal, if we 
 would just use the things on the table as ma 
 terials for study, and follow their trails back 
 to their starting-points. This turkey takes us 
 back to the chaparral of Mexico " 
 
 "What s chaparral?" asked Jennie, as a di 
 version. "It s one of the words I have seen 
 so often and know perfectly to speak it and 
 read it but after all it s just a word, and 
 nothing more." 
 
 "Ain t that the trouble with our education, 
 Jim?" queried the colonel, cleverly steering 
 Jim back into the track of his discourse. 
 
 "They are not even living words," answered 
 
116 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 Jim, "unless we have clothed them in flesh and 
 blood through some sort of concrete notion. 
 Chaparral to Jennie is just the ghost of a 
 word. Our civilization is full of inefficiency be 
 cause we are satisfied to give our children these 
 ghosts and shucks and husks of words, instead 
 of the things themselves, that can be seen and 
 hefted and handled and tested and heard." 
 
 Jennie looked Jim over carefully. His queer- 
 ness was taking on a new phase and she felt 
 a sense of surprise such as one experiences 
 when the conjurer causes a rose to grow into 
 a tree before your very eyes. Jim s develop 
 ment was not so rapid, but Jennie s perception 
 of it was. She began to feel proud of the fact 
 that a man who could make his impractical no 
 tions seem so plausible and who was clearly 
 fired with some sort of evangelistic fervor 
 had kissed her, once or twice, on bringing her 
 home from the spelling school. 
 
 "I think we lose so much time in school," 
 Jim went on, "while the children are eating 
 their dinners." 
 
 "Well, Jim," said Mrs. Woodruff, "every one 
 
HOW JIM WAS LINED UP 117 
 
 but you is down on the human level. The poor 
 kids have to eat!" 
 
 "But think how much good education there 
 Is wrapped up in the school dinner if we 
 could only get it out." 
 
 Jennie grew grave. Here was this Brown 
 Mouse actually introducing the subject of the 
 school and he ought to suspect that she was 
 planning to line him up on this very thing if 
 he wasn t a perfect donkey as well as a 
 dreamer. And he was calmly wading into the 
 subject as if she were the ex-farm-hand coun 
 try teacher, and he was the county superin 
 tendent-elect ! 
 
 "Eating a dinner like this, mother," said 
 the colonel gallantly, "is an education in itself 
 and eating some others requires one; but 
 just how larnin is wrapped up in the school 
 lunch is a new one on me, Jim." 
 
 "Well," said Jim, "in the first place the chil 
 dren ought to cook their meals as a part of 
 the school work. Prior to that they ought to 
 buy the materials. And prior to that they 
 ought to keep the accounts of the school 
 
 \ 
 
118 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 kitchen. They d like to do these things, and 
 it would help prepare them for life on an in 
 telligent plane, while they prepared the meals." 
 
 "Isn t that looking rather far ahead?" asked 
 the county superintendent-elect. 
 
 "It s like a lot of other things we think far 
 ahead," urged Jim. "The only reason why 
 they re far off is because we think them so. 
 It s a thought and a thought is as near the 
 moment we think it as it will ever be." 
 
 "I guess that s so to a wild-eyed reformer," 
 said the colonel. "But go on. Develop your 
 thought a little. Have some more dressing." 
 
 "Thanks, I believe I will," said Jim. "And 
 a little more of the cranberry sauce. No more 
 turkey, please." 
 
 "I d like to see the school class that could 
 prepare this dinner," said Mrs. Woodruff. 
 
 "Why," said Jim, "you d be there showing 
 them how! They d get credits in their domes 
 tic-economy course for getting the school din 
 ner and they d bring their mothers into it to 
 help them stand at the head of their classes. 
 And one detail of girls would cook one week, 
 and another serve. The setting of the table 
 
HOW JIM WAS LINED UP 119 
 
 would come in as a study flowers, linen and 
 all that. And when we get a civilized teacher, 
 table manners!" 
 
 "I d take on that class," said the hired man, 
 winking at Selma Carlson, the maid, from 
 somewhere below the salt. "The way I make 
 my knife feed my face would be a great help 
 to the children." 
 
 "And when the food came on the table," Jim 
 went on, with a smile at his former fellow- 
 laborer, who had heard most of this before as 
 a part of the field conversation, "just think of 
 the things we could study while eating it. The 
 literary term for eating a meal is discussing 
 it well, the discussion of a meal under proper 
 guidance is much more educative than a lec 
 ture. This breast-bone, now," said he, refer 
 ring to the remains on his plate. "That s physi 
 ology. The cranberry-sauce that s botany, 
 and commerce, and soil management do you 
 know, Colonel, that the cranberry must have an 
 acid soil which would kill alfalfa or clover?" 
 
 "Read something of it," said the colonel, 
 "but it didn t interest me much." 
 
 "And the difference between the types of 
 
120 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 fowl on the table that s breeding. And the 
 nutmeg, pepper and cocoanut that s geogra 
 phy. And everything on the table runs back 
 to geography, and comes to us linked to our 
 lives by dollars and cents and they re mathe 
 matics." 
 
 "We must have something more than dollars 
 and cents in life," said Jennie. "We must have 
 culture." 
 
 "Culture," cried Jim, "is the ability to think 
 in terms of life isn t it?" 
 
 "Like Jesse James," suggested the hired man, 
 who was a careful student of the life of that 
 eminent bandit. 
 
 There was a storm of laughter at this sally 
 amidst which Jennie wished she had thought 
 of something like that. Jim joined in the 
 laughter at his own expense, but was clearly 
 suffering from argumentative shock. 
 
 "That s the best answer I ve had on that 
 point, Pete," he said, after the disturbance had 
 subsided. "But if the James boys and the 
 Youngers had had the sort of culture I m for, 
 they would have been successful stock men and 
 farmers, instead of train-robbers. Take Ray- 
 
HOW JIM WAS LINED UP 121 
 
 mond Simms, for instance. He had all the 
 qualifications of a member of the James gang 
 when he came here. All he needed was a few 
 exasperated associates of his own sort, and a 
 convenient railway with undefended trains 
 running over it. But after a few weeks of real 
 culture under a mighty poor teacher, he s de 
 veloping into the most enthusiastic farmer I 
 know. That s real culture." 
 
 "It s snowing like everything," said Jennie, 
 who faced the window. 
 
 "Don t cut your dinner short," said the 
 colonel to Pete, "but I think you ll find the 
 cattle ready to come in out of the storm when 
 you get good and through." 
 
 "I think I ll let em in now," said Pete, by 
 way of excusing himself. "I expect to put in 
 most of the day from now on getting ready to 
 quit eating. Save some of everything for 
 me, Selma, I ll be right back !" 
 
 "All right, Pete," said Selma. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE MOUSE ESCAPES 
 
 JENNIE played the piano and sang. They 
 all joined in some simple Christmas songs. 
 Mrs. Woodruff and Jim s mother went into 
 other parts of the house on research work con 
 nected with their converse on domestic econ 
 omy. The colonel withdrew for an inspection 
 of the live stock on the eve of the threatened 
 blizzard. And Jim was left alone with Jennie 
 in the front parlor. After the buzz of conver 
 sation, they seemed to have nothing to say. 
 Jennie played softly, and looked at nothing, but 
 scrutinized Jim by means of the eyes which 
 women have concealed in their back hair. 
 There was something new in the man she 
 sensed that. He was more confident, more per 
 suasive, more dynamic. She was used to him 
 only as a static force. 
 
 And Jim felt something new, too. He had 
 122 
 
THE MOUSE ESCAPES 123 
 
 felt it growing in him ever since he began his 
 school work, and knew not the cause of it. The 
 cause, however, would not have been a mys 
 tery to a wise old yogi who might discover the 
 same sort of change in one of his young novices. 
 Jim Irwin had been a sort of ascetic since his 
 boyhood. He had mortified the flesh by hard 
 labor in the fields, and by flagellations of the 
 brain to drive off sleep while he pored over his 
 books in the attic which was often so hot 
 after a day of summer s sun on its low thin 
 roof, that he was forced to do his reading in 
 the midmost night. He had looked long on 
 such women as Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Isa 
 bel, Cressida, Volumnia, Virginia, Evangeline, 
 Agnes Wickfield and Fair Rosamond; but on 
 women in the flesh he had gazed as upon trees 
 walking. The aforesaid spiritual director, had 
 this young ascetic been under one, would have 
 foreseen the effects on the psychology of a stout 
 fellow of twenty-eight of freedom from the toil 
 of the fields, and association with a group of 
 young human beings of both sexes. To the 
 novice struggling for emancipation from earthly 
 thoughts, he would have recommended fasting 
 
124 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 and prayer, and perhaps, a hair shirt. Just 
 what his prescription would have been for a 
 man in Jim s position is, of course, a question. 
 He would, no doubt, have considered care 
 fully his patient s symptoms. These were very 
 largely the mental experiences which most boys 
 pass through in their early twenties, save, per 
 haps that, as in a belated season, the transition 
 from winter to spring was more sudden, and 
 the contrast more violent. Jim was now thrown 
 every day into contact with his fellows. He was 
 no longer a lay monk, but an active member of 
 a very human group. He was becoming more 
 of a boy, with the boys, and still more was he 
 developing into a man with the women. The 
 budding womanhood of Calista Simms and the 
 other girls of his school thrilled him as Helen 
 of Troy or Juliet had never done. This will 
 not seem very strange to the experienced 
 reader, but it astonished the unsophisticated 
 young schoolmaster. The floating hair, the 
 heaving bosom, the rosebud mouth, the starry 
 eye, the fragrant breath, the magnetic hand 
 all these disturbed the hitherto sedate mind, 
 and filled the brief hours he was accustomed 
 
THE MOUSE ESCAPES 125 
 
 to spend in sleep with strange dreams. And 
 now, as he gazed at Jennie, he was suddenly 
 aware of the fact that, after all, whenever 
 these thoughts and dreams took on individual 
 ity, they were only persistent and intensified 
 continuations of his old dreams of her. They 
 had always been dormant in him, since the days 
 they both studied from the same book. He was 
 quite sure, now, that he had never forgotten 
 for a moment, that Jennie was the only girl in 
 the world for him. And possibly he was right 
 about this. It is perfectly certain, however, 
 that for years he had not consciously been in 
 love with her. 
 
 Now, however, he arose as from some inner 
 compulsion, and went to her side. He wished 
 that he knew enough of music to turn her 
 sheets for her, but, alas ! the notes were mean 
 ingless to him. Still scanning him by means 
 of her back hair, Jennie knew that in another 
 moment Jim would lay his hand on her shoul* 
 der, or otherwise advance to personal nearness, 
 as he had done the night of his ill-starred 
 speech at the schoolhouse and she rose in self- 
 defense. Self-defense, however, did not seem 
 
126 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 to require that he be kept at too great a dis 
 tance ; so she maneuvered him to the sofa, and 
 seated him beside her. Now was the time to 
 line him up. 
 
 "It seems good to have you with us to-day," 
 said she. "We re such old, old friends." 
 
 "Yes," repeated Jim, "old friends. ... We 
 are, aren t we, Jennie?" 
 
 "And I feel sure," Jennie went on, "that this 
 marks a new era in our friendship." 
 
 "Why?" asked Jim, after considering the 
 matter. 
 
 "Oh! everything is different, now and get 
 ting more different all the time. My new work, 
 and your new work, you know." 
 
 "I should like to think," said Jim, "that we 
 are beginning over again." 
 
 "Oh, we are, we are, indeed ! I am quite sure 
 of it." 
 
 "And yet," said Jim, "there is no such thing 
 as a new beginning. Everything joins itself, 
 to something which went before. There isn t 
 any seam." 
 
 "No?" said Jennie interrogatively. 
 
 "Our regard for each other," Jennie noted 
 
THE MOUSE ESCAPES 127 
 
 most pointedly his word "regard" "must be 
 the continuation of the old regard." 
 
 "I hardly know what you mean," said Jennie. 
 
 Jim reached over and possessed himself of 
 her hand. She pulled it from him gently, but 
 he paid no attention to the little muscular pro 
 test, and examined the hand critically. On the 
 back of the middle finger he pointed out a scar 
 a very tiny scar. 
 
 "Do you remember how you got that?" he 
 asked. 
 
 Because Jim clung to the hand, their heads 
 were very close together as she joined in the 
 examination. 
 
 "Why, I don t believe I do," said she. 
 
 "I do," he replied. "We you and I and 
 Mary Forsythe were playing mumble-peg, and 
 you put your hand on the grass just as I threw 
 the knife it cut you, and left that scar." 
 
 "I remember, now!" said she. "How such 
 things come back over the memory. And did 
 it leave a scar when I pushed you toward the 
 red-hot stove in the schoolhouse one blizzardy 
 day, like this, and you peeled the skin off your 
 wrist where it struck the stove?" 
 
128 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "Look at it," said he, baring his long and 
 bony wrist. "Right there !" 
 
 And they were off on the trail that leads 
 back to childhood. They had talked long, and 
 intimately, when the shadows of the early eve 
 ning crept into the corners of the room. He 
 had carried her across the flooded slew again 
 after the big rain. They had relived a dozen 
 moving incidents by flood and field. Jennie 
 recalled the time when the tornado narrowly 
 missed the schoolhouse, and frightened every 
 body in school nearly to death. 
 
 "Everybody but you, Jim," Jennie remem 
 bered. "You looked out of the window and 
 told the teacher that the twister was going 
 north of us, and would kill somebody else." 
 
 "Did I?" asked Jim. 
 
 "Yes," said Jennie, "and when the teacher 
 asked us to kneel and thank God, you said, 
 Why should we thank God that somebody else 
 is blowed away? She was greatly shocked." 
 
 "I don t see to this day," Jim asserted, "what 
 answer there was to my question." 
 
 In the gathering darkness Jim again took 
 
"Do you remember how you get that? 
 
THE MOUSE ESCAPES 129 
 
 Jennie s hand, but this time she deprived him 
 of it. 
 
 He was trembling like a leaf. Let it be re 
 membered in his favor that this was the only 
 girl s hand he had ever held. 
 
 "You can t find any more scars on it," she 
 said soberly. 
 
 "Let me see how much it has changed since 
 J stuck the knife in it," begged Jim. 
 
 Jennie held it up for inspection. 
 
 "It s longer, and slenderer, and whiter, and 
 even more beautiful," said he, "than the little 
 hand I cut; but it was then the most beautiful 
 hand in the world to me and still is." 
 
 "I must light the lamps," said the county 
 superintendent-elect, rather flustered, it must 
 be confessed. "Mama! Where are all the 
 matches ?" 
 
 Mrs. Woodruff and Mrs. Irwin came in, and 
 the lamplight reminded Jim s mother that the 
 cow was still to milk, and that the chickens 
 might need attention. The Woodruff sleigh 
 came to the door to carry them home ; but Jim 
 desired to breast the storm. He felt that he 
 
130 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 needed the conflict. Mrs. Irwin scolded him 
 for his foolishness, but he strode off into the 
 whirling drift, throwing back a good-by for 
 general consumption, and a pathetic smile to 
 Jennie. 
 
 "He s as odd as Dick s hatband," said Mrs. 
 Woodruff, "tramping off in a storm like this." 
 
 "Did you line him up?" asked the colonel 
 of Jennie. 
 
 The young lady started and blushed. She 
 had forgotten all about the politics of the sit 
 uation. 
 
 "I Fm afraid I didn t, papa," she confessed. 
 
 "Those brown mice of Professor Darbi- 
 shire s," said the colonel, "were the devil and 
 all to control." 
 
 Jennie was thinking of this as she dropped 
 asleep. 
 
 "Hard to control !" she thought. "I wonder. 
 I wonder, after all, if Jim is not capable of be 
 ing easily lined up when he sees how foolish 
 I think he is!" 
 
 And Jim? He found himself hard to con 
 trol that night. So much so that it was after 
 
THE MOUSE ESCAPES 131 
 
 midnight before he had finished work on a 
 plan for a cooperative creamery. 
 
 "The boys can be given work in helping to 
 operate it," he wrote on a tablet, "which, in 
 connection with the labor performed by the 
 teacher, will greatly reduce the expense of op 
 eration. A skilled buttermaker, with slender 
 white hands" but he erased this last clause 
 and retired. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 FACING TRIAL 
 
 A DISTINCT sensation ran through the 
 
 *** Woodruff school, but the schoolmaster and 
 a group of five big boys and three girls en 
 gaged in a very unclasslike conference in the 
 back of the room were all unconscious of it. 
 The geography classes had recited, and the lan 
 guage work was on. Those too small for these 
 studies were playing a game under the leader 
 ship of Jinnie Simms, who had been promoted 
 to the position of weed-seed monitor. 
 
 The game was forfeits. Each child had been 
 encouraged to bring some sort of weed from 
 the winter fields preferably one the seed of 
 which still clung to the dried receptacles but 
 anyhow, a weed. Some pupils had brought 
 merely empty tassels, some bare stalks, and 
 some seeds which they had winnowed froi* 
 132 
 
FACING TRIAL 133 
 
 the grain in their father s bins ; and with them 
 they played forfeits. They counted out by the 
 "arey, Ira, ickery an " method, and somebody 
 was "It." Then, in order, they presented to 
 him a seed, stalk or head of a weed, and if the 
 one who was It could tell the name of the weed, 
 the child who brought the specimen became It, 
 and the name was written on slates or tablets, 
 and the new It told where the weed or seed was 
 collected. If any pupil brought in a specimen 
 the name of which he himself could not cor 
 rectly give, he paid a forfeit. If a specimen 
 was brought in not found in the school cabinet 
 which was coming to contain a considerable 
 collection it was placed there, and the task 
 allotted to the best penman in the school to 
 write its proper label. All this caused excite 
 ment, and not a little buzz but it ceased when 
 the county superintendent entered the room. 
 
 For it was after the first of January, and 
 Jennie was visiting the Woodruff school. 
 
 The group in the back of the room went on 
 with its conference, oblivious of the entrance 
 of Superintendent Jennie. Their work was 
 rather absorbing, being no more nor less than 
 
134 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 the compilation of the figures of a cow census 
 of the district. 
 
 "Altogether," said Mary Talcott, "we have 
 in the district one hundred and fifty-three 
 cows." 
 
 "I don t make it that/ said Raymond Simms. 
 "I don t get but a hundred and thirty-eight." 
 
 "The trouble is," said Newton Bronson, "that 
 Mary s counting in the Bailey herd of Short 
 horns." 
 
 "Well, they re cows, ain t they?" interro 
 gated Mary. 
 
 "Not for this census," said Raymond. 
 
 "Why not?" asked Mary. "They re the pret 
 tiest cows in the neighborhood." 
 
 "Scotch Shorthorns," said Newton, "and run 
 with their calves." 
 
 "Leave them out," said Jim, "and to-mor- 
 : v ow, I want each one to tell in the language 
 class, in three hundred words or less, whether 
 there are enough cows in the district to justify 
 a cooperative creamery, and give the reason c 
 You ll find articles in the farm papers if you 
 look through the card index. Now, how about 
 the census in the adjoining districts?" 
 
FACING TRIAL 135 
 
 "There are more than two hundred within 
 four miles on the roads leading west," said a 
 boy. 
 
 "My father and I counted up about a hun 
 dred beyond us," said Mary. "But I couldn t 
 get the exact number." 
 
 "Why," said Raymond, "we could find six 
 hundred dairy cows in this neighborhood, 
 within an hour s drive." 
 
 "Six hundred!" scoffed Newton. "You re 
 crazy! In an hour s drive?" 
 
 "I mean an hour s drive each way," said 
 Raymond. 
 
 "I believe we could," said Jim. "And after 
 we find how far we will have to go to get 
 enough cows, if half of them patronized the 
 creamery, we ll work over the savings the busi 
 ness would make, if we could get the prices 
 for butter paid the Wisconsin cooperative 
 creameries, as compared with what the central- 
 izers pay us, on a basis of the last six months. 
 Who s in possession of that correspondence 
 with the Wisconsin creameries?" 
 
 "I have it," said Raymond. "I m hecto- 
 graphing a lot of arithmetic problems from it." 
 
136 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "How do you do, Mr. Irwin I" It was the su 
 perintendent who spoke. 
 
 Jim s brain whirled little prismatic clouds 
 before his vision, as he rose and shook Jennie s 
 extended hand. 
 
 "Let me give you a chair," said he. 
 
 "Oh, no, thank you I" she returned. "I ll just 
 make myself at home. I know my way about 
 in this schoolhouse, you know!" 
 
 She smiled at the children, and went about 
 looking at their work which was not notice 
 ably disturbed, by reason of the fact that visit 
 ors were much more frequent now than ever 
 before, and were no rarity. Certainly, Jennie 
 Woodruff was no novelty, since they had known 
 her all their lives. Most of the embarrassment 
 was Jim s. He rose to the occasion, however, 
 went through the routine of the closing day, 
 and dismissed the flock, not omitting making 
 an engagement with a group of boys for that 
 evening to come back and work on the formalin 
 treatment for smut in seed grains, and the 
 blue-vitriol treatment for seed potatoes, 
 
 "We hadn t time for these things," said he 
 
FACING TRIAL 137 
 
 to the county superintendent, "in the regular 
 class work and it s getting time to take them 
 up if we are to clean out the smut in next year s 
 crop." 
 
 They repeated Whittier s Corn Song in 
 concert, and school was out. 
 
 Alone with her in the old schoolhouse, Jim 
 confronted Jennie in the flesh. She felt a sense 
 of his agitation, but if she had known the 
 power of it, she would have been astonished. 
 Since that Christmas afternoon when she had 
 undertaken to follow Mr. Peterson s advice and 
 line Yim Irwin up, Jim had gone through an 
 inward transformation. He had passed from 
 a late, cold, backward sexual spring, into a 
 warm June of the spirit, in which he had 
 walked amid roses and lilies with Jennie. He 
 was in love with her. He knew how insane it 
 was, how much less than nothing had taken 
 place in his circumstances to justify the hope 
 that he could ever emerge from the state in 
 which she would not say "Humph!" at the 
 thought that he could marry her or any one 
 else. Yet, he had made up his mind that he 
 
138 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 would marry Jennie Woodruff. . . . She ought 
 never have tried to line him up. She knew not 
 what she did. 
 
 He saw her through clouds of rose and pink ; 
 but she looked at him as at a foolish man who 
 was making trouble for her, chasing rainbows 
 at her expense, and deeply vexing her. She 
 was in a cold official frame of mind. 
 
 "Jim," said she, "do you know that you are 
 facing trouble?" 
 
 "Trouble," said Jim, "is the natural condi 
 tion of a man in my state of mind. But it is 
 going to be a delicious sort of tribulation." 
 
 "I don t know what you mean," she replied 
 in perfect honesty. 
 
 "Then I don t know what you mean," replied 
 Jim. 
 
 "Jim," she said pleadingly, "I want you to 
 give up this sort of teaching. Can t you see 
 it s all wrong?" 
 
 "No," answered Jim, in much the manner 
 of a man who has been stabbed by his sweet 
 heart. "I can t see that it s wrong. It s the 
 only sort I can do. What do you see wrong 
 in it?" 
 
FACING TRIAL 139 
 
 "Oh, I can see some very wonderful things 
 in it," said Jennie, "but it can t be done in the 
 Woodruff District. It may be correct in theory, 
 but it won t work in practise." 
 
 "Jennie," said he, "when a thing won t work, 
 it isn t correct in theory." 
 
 "Well, then, Jim," said she, "why do you 
 keep on with it?" 
 
 "It works," said Jim. "Anything that s cor 
 rect in theory will work. If the theory seems 
 correct, and yet won t work, it s because some 
 thing is wrong in an unsuspected way with the 
 theory. But my theory is correct, and it 
 works." 
 
 "But the district is against it." 
 
 "Who are the district?" 
 
 "The school board are against it." 
 
 "The school board elected me after listening 
 to an explanation of my theories as to the new 
 sort of rural school in which I believe. I as 
 sume that they commissioned me to carry out 
 my ideas." 
 
 "Oh, Jim!" cried Jennie. "That s sophistry! 
 They all voted for you so you wouldn t be with 
 out support. Each wanted you to have just one 
 
140 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 vote. Nobody wanted you elected. They were 
 all surprised. You know that!" 
 
 "They stood by and saw the contract signed," 
 said Jim, "and yes, Jennie, I am dealing in 
 sophistry! I got the school by a sort of shell- 
 game, which the board worked on themselves. 
 But that doesn t prove that the district is 
 against me. I believe the people are for me, 
 now, Jennie, I really do!" 
 
 Jennie rose and walked to the rear of the 
 room and back, twice. When she spoke, there 
 was decision in her tone and Jim felt that it 
 was hostile decision. 
 
 "As an officer," she said rather grandly, "my 
 relations with the district are with the school 
 board on the one hand, and with your compe 
 tency as a teacher on the other." 
 
 "Has it come to that?" asked Jim. "Well, I 
 have rather expected it." 
 
 His tone was weary. The Lincolnian droop 
 in his great, sad, mournful mouth accentuated 
 the resemblance to the martyr president. Pos 
 sibly his feelings were not entirely different 
 from those experienced by Lincoln at some 
 
FACING TRIAL 141 
 
 crises of doubt, misunderstanding and depres 
 sion. 
 
 "If you can t change your methods," said 
 Jennie, "I suggest that you resign." 
 
 "Do you think," said Jim, "that changing 
 my methods would appease the men who feel 
 that they are made laughing-stocks by having 
 elected me?" 
 
 Jennie was silent; for she knew that the 
 school board meant to pursue their policy of 
 getting rid of the accidental incumbent regard 
 less of his methods. 
 
 "They would never call off their dogs," said 
 Jim. 
 
 "But your methods would make a great dif 
 ference with my decision," said Jennie. 
 
 "Are you to be called upon to decide?" asked 
 Jim. 
 
 "A formal complaint against you for incom- 
 petency," she replied, "has been lodged in my 
 office, signed by the three directors. I shall 
 be obliged to take notice of it." 
 
 "And do you think," queried Jim, "that my 
 abandonment of the things in which I believe 
 in the face of this attack would prove to your 
 
142 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 mind that I am competent? Or would it show 
 me incompetent?" 
 
 Again Jennie was silent. 
 
 "I guess," said Jim, "that we ll have to stand 
 or fall on things as they are." 
 
 "Do you refuse to resign?" asked Jennie. 
 
 "Sometimes I think it s not worth while to 
 try any longer," said Jim. "And yet, I believe 
 that in my way I m working on the question 
 which must be solved if this nation is to stand 
 the question of making the farm and farm life 
 what they should be and may well be. At this 
 moment, I feel like surrendering for your 
 sake more than mine; but I ll have to think 
 about it. Suppose I refuse to resign?" 
 
 Jennie had drawn on her gloves, and stood 
 ready for departure. 
 
 "Unless you resign before the twenty-fifth," 
 said she, "I shall hear the petition for your re 
 moval on that date. You will be allowed to 
 be present and answer the charges against 
 you. The charges are incompetency. I bid you 
 good evening!" 
 
 "Incompetency !" The disgraceful word, 
 representing everything he had always de- 
 
FACING TRIAL 143 
 
 spised, rang through Jim s mind as he walked 
 home. He could think of nothing else as he sat 
 at the simple supper which he could scarcely 
 taste. Incompetent! Well, had he not always 
 been incompetent, except in the use of his 
 muscles? Had he not always been a dreamer? 
 Were not all his dreams as foreign to life 
 and common sense as the Milky Way 
 from the earth? What reason was there for 
 thinking that this crusade of his for better 
 schools had any sounder foundation than his 
 dream of being president, or a great painter, 
 or a poet or novelist or philosopher? He was 
 just a hayseed, a rube, a misfit, as odd as Dick s 
 hatband, an off ox. He was incompetent. He 
 picked up a pen, and began writing. He wrote, 
 "To the Honorable the Board of Education of 
 
 the Independent District of " And he 
 
 heard a tap at the door. His mother admitted 
 Colonel Woodruff. 
 
 "Hello, Jim," said he. 
 
 "Good evening, Colonel," said Jim. "Take 
 a chair, won t you?" 
 
 "No," replied the colonel. "I thought I d 
 see if you and the boys at the schoolhouse 
 
144 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 can t tell me something about the smut in my 
 wheat. I heard you were going to work on that 
 to-night." 
 
 "I had forgotten !" said Jim. 
 
 "I wondered if you hadn t," said the colonel, 
 "and so I came by for you. I was waiting up 
 the road. Come on, and ride up with me." 
 
 The colonel had always been friendly, but 
 there was a new note in his manner to-night. 
 He was almost deferential. If he had been 
 talking to Senator Cummins or the president 
 of the state university, his tone could not have 
 been more courteous, more careful to preserve 
 the amenities due from man to man. He 
 worked with the class on the problem of smut. 
 He offered to aid the boys in every possible 
 way in their campaign against scab in potatoes. 
 He suggested some tests which would show the 
 real value of the treatment. The boys were in 
 a glow of pride at this cooperation with Colonel 
 Woodruff. This was real Work! Jim and the 
 colonel went away together. It had been a 
 great evening. 
 
 "Jim," said the colonel, "can these kids 
 epell?" 
 
FACING TRIAL 145 
 
 "You mean these boys?" 
 
 "I mean the school." 
 
 "I think," said Jim, "that they can outspell 
 any school about here." 
 
 "Good," said the colonel. "How are they 
 about reading aloud?" 
 
 "Better than they were when I took hold." 
 
 "How about arithmetic and the other 
 branches? Have you sort of kept them up to 
 the course of study?" 
 
 "I have carried them in a course parallel to 
 the text-books," said Jim, "and covering the 
 same ground. But it has been vocational work, 
 you know related to life." 
 
 "Well," said the colonel, "if I were you, I d 
 put them over a rapid review of the text-books 
 for a few days say between now and the 
 twenty-fifth." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing just to please me. . . . And 
 say, Jim, I glanced over a communication 
 you have started to the more or less Honorable 
 Board of Education." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "Well, don t finish it. ... And say, Jim, 
 
146 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 I think I ll give myself the luxury of being a 
 wild-eyed reformer for once." 
 
 "Yes," said Jim, dazed. 
 
 "And if you think, Jim, that you ve got no 
 friends, just remember that I m for you." 
 
 "Thank you, Colonel." 
 
 "And we ll show them they re in a horse 
 race." 
 
 "I don t see . . ." said Jim. 
 
 "You re not supposed to see," said the 
 colonel, "but you can bet that we ll be with 
 them at the finish; and, by thunder! while 
 they re getting a full meal, we ll get at least 
 a lunch. See?" 
 
 "But Jennie says," began Jim. 
 
 "Don t tell me what she says," said the 
 colonel. "She s acting according to her judg 
 ment, and her lights and other organs of per 
 ception, and I don t think it fittin that her 
 father should try to influence her official con 
 duct. But you go on and review them common 
 branches, and keep your nerve. I haven t felt 
 so much like a scrap since the day we stormed 
 Lookout Mountain. I kinder like being a wild- 
 eyed reformer, Jim." 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 FAME OR NOTORIETY 
 
 office of county superintendent was, as 
 a matter of course, the least desirable room 
 of the court-house. I say "room" advisedly, 
 because it consisted of a single chamber of 
 moderate size, provided with office furniture of 
 the minimum quantity and maximum age. It 
 opened off the central hall at the upper end of 
 the stairway which led to the court room, and 
 when court was in session, served the extraor 
 dinary needs of justice as a jury room. At 
 such times the county superintendent s desk 
 was removed to the hall, where it stood in a 
 noisy and confusing but very democratic pub 
 licity. Superintendent Jennie might have 
 anticipated the time when, during the March 
 term, offenders passing from the county jail 
 in the basement to arraignment at the bar of 
 justice might be able to peek over her shoul- 
 147 
 
148 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 ders and criticize her method of treating 
 examination papers. On the twenty-fifth of 
 February, however, this experience lurked 
 unsuspected in her official future. 
 
 Poor Jennie ! She anticipated nothing more 
 than the appearance of Messrs. Bronson, 
 Peterson and Bonner in her office to confront 
 Jim Irwin on certain questions of fact re 
 lating to Jim s competency to hold a teacher s 
 certificate. The time appointed was ten 
 o clock. At nine forty-five Cornelius Bonner 
 and his wife entered the office, and took twenty- 
 five per cent, of the chairs therein. At nine 
 fifty Jim Irwin came in, haggard, weather- 
 beaten and seedy as ever, and looked as if he 
 had neither eaten nor slept since his sweetheart 
 stabbed him. At nine fifty-five Haakon Peter 
 son and Ezra Bronson came in, accompanied by 
 Wilbur Smythe, attorney-at-law, who carried 
 under his arm a code of Iowa, a compilation 
 of the school laws of the state, and Tkroop on 
 Public Officers. At nine fifty-six, therefore, the 
 crowd in Jennie s office exceeded its seating 
 capacity, and Jennie was in a flutter as the 
 realization dawned upon her that this promised 
 
FAME OR NOTORIETY 149 
 
 to be a bigger and more public affair than she 
 had anticipated. At nine fifty-nine Raymond 
 Simms opened the office door and there filed 
 in enough children, large and small, some of 
 them accompanied by their parents, and all 
 belonging to the Woodruff school, to fill com 
 pletely the interstices of the corners and angles 
 of the room and between the legs of the grown 
 ups. In addition there remained an overflow 
 meeting in the hall, under the command of that 
 distinguished military gentleman, Colonel Al 
 bert Woodruff. 
 
 "Say, Bill, come here!" said the colonel, 
 crooking his finger at the deputy sheriff. 
 
 "What you got here, Al!" said Bill, coming 
 up the stairs, puffing. "Ain t it a little early 
 for Sunday-school picnics?" 
 
 "This is a school fight in our district," said 
 the colonel. "It s Jennie s baptism of fire, I 
 reckon . . . and say, you re not using the 
 court room, are you ?" 
 
 "Nope," said Bill. 
 
 "Well, why not just slip around, then," said 
 the colonel, "and tell Jennie she d better ad 
 journ to the big room." 
 
150 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 Which suggestion was acted upon instanter 
 by Deputy Bill. 
 
 "But I can t, I can t," said Jennie to the 
 courteous deputy sheriff. "I don t want all this 
 publicity, and I don t want to go into the court 
 
 room." 
 
 "I hardly see," said Deputy Bill, "how you 
 can avoid it. These people seem to have busi 
 ness with you, and they can t get into your 
 office." 
 
 "But they have no business with me," said 
 Jennie. "It s mere curiosity." 
 
 Whereupon Wilbur Smythe, who could see no 
 particular point in restricted publicity, said, 
 "Madame County Superintendent, this hearing 
 certainly is public or quasi-public. Your office 
 is a public one, and while the right to attend 
 this hearing may not possibly be a universal 
 one, it surely is one belonging to every citizen 
 and taxpayer of the county, and if the taxpayer, 
 qua taxpayer, then certainly a fortiori to the 
 members of the Woodruff school and residents 
 of that district." 
 
 Jennie quailed. "All right, all right!" said 
 she. "But, shall I have to sit on the bench !" 
 
FAME OR NOTORIETY 151 
 
 "You will find it by far the most convenient 
 place," said Deputy Bill. 
 
 Was this the life to which public office had 
 brought her? Was it for this that she had 
 bartered her independence for this and the 
 musty office, the stupid examination papers, 
 and the interminable visiting of schools, know 
 ing that such supervision as she could give 
 was practically worthless ? Jim had said to her 
 that he had never heard of such a thing as a 
 good county superintendent of schools, and she 
 had thought him queer. And now, here was she, 
 called upon to pass on the competency of the 
 man who had always been her superior in 
 everything that constitutes mental ability ; and 
 to make the thing more a matter for the laugh 
 ter of the gods, she was perched on the judicial 
 bench, which Deputy Bill had dusted off for 
 her, tipping a wink to the assemblage while 
 doing it. He expected to be a candidate for 
 sheriff, one of these days, and was pleasing 
 the crowd. And that crowd! To Jennie it 
 was appalling. The school board under the 
 lead of Wilbur Smythe took seats inside the 
 railing which on court days divided the audi- 
 
152 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 ence from the lawyers and litigants. Jim 
 Irwin, who had never been in a court room be 
 fore, herded with the crowd, obeying the at 
 traction of sympathy, but to Jennie, seated on 
 the bench, he, like other persons in the audi 
 torium, was a mere blurry outline with a knob 
 of a head on its top. 
 
 She couldn t call the gathering to order. She 
 had no idea as to the proper procedure. She 
 sat there while the people gathered, stood about 
 whispering and talking under their breaths, 
 and finally became silent, all their eyes fixed 
 on her, as she wished that the office of county 
 superintendent had been abolished in the days 
 of her parents infancy. 
 
 "May it please the court," said Wilbur 
 Smythe, standing before the bar. "Or, Madame 
 County Superintendent, I should say . . ." 
 
 A titter ran through the room, and a flush 
 of temper tinted Jennie s face. They were 
 laughing at her! She wouldn t be a spectacle 
 any longer! So she rose, and handed down 
 her first and last decision from the bench a 
 rather good one, I think. 
 
 "Mr. Smythe," said she, "I feel very ill at 
 
\ 
 
 "May it please the court" 
 
FAME OR NOTORIETY 153 
 
 ease up here, and I m going to get down among 
 the people. It s the only way I have of getting 
 the truth." 
 
 She descended from the bench, shook hands 
 with everybody near her, and sat down by the 
 attorney s table. 
 
 "Now," said she, "this is no formal proceed 
 ing and we will dispense with red tape. If 
 we don t, I shall get all tangled up in it. 
 Where s Mr. Irwin? Please come in here, 
 Jim. Now, I know there s some feeling in these 
 things there always seems to be; but I have 
 none. So I ll just hear why Mr. Bronson, Mr. 
 Peterson and Mr. Bonner think that Mr. James 
 E. Irwin isn t competent to hold a certifi 
 cate." 
 
 Jennie was able to smile at them now, and 
 everybody felt more at ease, save Jim Irwin, 
 the members of the board and Wilbur Smythe. 
 That individual arose, and talked down at Jen 
 nie. 
 
 "I appear for the proponents here," said he, 
 "and I desire to suggest certain principles of 
 procedure which I take it belong indisputably 
 to the conduct of this hearing." 
 
154 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "Have you a lawyer?" asked the county 
 superintendent of the respondent. 
 
 "A what?" exclaimed Jim. "Nobody here 
 has a lawyer!" 
 
 "Well, what do you call Wilbur Smythe?" 
 queried Newton Bronson from the midst of the 
 crowd. 
 
 "He ain t lawyer enough to hurt!" said the 
 thing which the dramatists call A Voice. 
 
 There was a little tempest of laughter at 
 Wilbur Smythe s expense, which was quelled 
 by Jennie s rapping on the table. She was be 
 ginning to feel the mouth of the situation. 
 
 "I have no way of retaining a lawyer," said 
 Jim, on whom the truth had gradually dawned. 
 "If a lawyer is necessary, I am without pro 
 tection but it never occurred to me . . ." 
 
 "There is nothing in the school laws, as I 
 remember them," said Jennie, "giving the par 
 ties any right to be represented by counsel. If 
 there is, Mr. Smythe will please set me right." 
 
 She paused for Mr. Smythe s reply. 
 
 "There is nothing which expressly gives that 
 privilege," said Mr. Smythe, "but the right to 
 the benefit of skilled advisers is a universal 
 
FAME OR NOTORIETY 155 
 
 one. It can not be questioned. And in opening 
 this case for my clients, I desire to call your 
 honor s attention " 
 
 "You may advise your clients all you please," 
 said Jennie, "but I m not going to waste time 
 in listening to speeches, or having a lot of law 
 yers examine witnesses." 
 
 "I protest," said Mr. Smythe. 
 
 "Well, you may file your protest in writing," 
 said Jennie. "I m going to talk this matter 
 over with these old friends and neighbors of 
 mine. I don t want you dipping into it, I say !" 
 
 Jennie s voice was rising toward the scream- 
 line, and Mr. Smythe recognized the hand of 
 fate. One may argue with a cantankerous judge, 
 but the woman, who like necessity, knows no 
 law, and who is smothering in a flood of per 
 plexities, is beyond reason. Moreover, Jennie 
 dimly saw that what she was doing had the 
 approval of the crowd, and it solved the prob 
 lem of procedure. 
 
 There was a little wrangling, and a little 
 protest from Con Bonner, but Jennie ruled with 
 a rod of iron, arid adhered to her ruling. When 
 the hearing was resumed after the noon recess, 
 
156 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 the crowd was larger than ever, but the pro 
 ceedings 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 news 
 paper 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 class 
 mates. 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. It helped to make it a "good story." 
 
 By the time at which gathering darkness 
 made it necessary for the bailiff to light the 
 lamps, the parties had agreed on the facts. 
 Jim admitted most of the allegations. He had 
 practically ignored the text-books. He had 
 burned the district fuel and worn out the dis 
 trict furniture early and late, and on Satur 
 days. He had introduced domestic economy 
 
FAME OR NOTORIETY 157 
 
 and manual training, to some extent, by send 
 ing the boys to the workshops and the girls to 
 the kitchens and sewing-rooms of the farmers 
 who allowed those privileges. He had used 
 up a great deal of time in studying farm con 
 ditions. He had induced the boys to test the 
 cows of the district for butter-fat yield. He 
 was studying the matter of a cooperative 
 creamery. He hoped to have a blacksmith 
 shop on the schoolhouse grounds sometime, 
 where the boys could learn metal working by 
 repairing the farm machinery, and shoeing the 
 farm horses. He hoped to install a cooperative 
 laundry in connection with the creamery. He 
 hoped to see a building sometime, with an audi 
 torium where the people would meet often for 
 moving picture shows, lectures and the like, 
 and he expected that most of the descriptions 
 of foreign lands, industrial operations, wild 
 animals in short, everything that people 
 should learn about by seeing, rather than read 
 ing would be taught the children by moving 
 pictures accompanied by lectures. He hoped 
 to open to the boys and girls the wonders of 
 the universe which are touched by the work 
 
158 THE BRQWN MOUSE 
 
 on the farm. He hoped to make good and con 
 tented farmers of them, able to get the most 
 out of the soil, to sell what they produced to 
 the best advantage, and at the same time to 
 keep up the fertility of the soil itself. And 
 he hoped to teach the girls in such a way that 
 they would be good and contented farmers 
 wives. He even had in mind as a part of the 
 schoolhouse the Woodruff District would one 
 day build, an apartment in which the mothers 
 of the neighborhood would leave their babies 
 when they went to town, so that the girls could 
 learn the care of infants. 
 
 "An* I say," interposed Con Bonner, "that 
 we can rest our case right here. If that ain t 
 the limit, I don t know what is !" 
 
 "Well," said Jennie, "do you desire to rest 
 your case right here?" 
 
 Mr. Bonner made no reply to this, and Jennie 
 turned to Jim. 
 
 "Now, Mr. Irwin," said she, "while you have 
 been following out these very interesting and 
 original methods, what have you done in the 
 way of teaching the things called for by the 
 course of study?" 
 
FAME OR NOTORIETY 159 
 
 "What is the course of study?" queried Jim. 
 "Is it anything more than an outline of the 
 mental march the pupils are ordered to make? 
 Take reading: why does it give the children 
 any greater mastery of the printed page to 
 read about Casabianca on the burning deck, 
 than about the cause of the firing of corn by hot 
 weather? And how can they be given better 
 command of language than by writing about 
 things they have found out in relation to some 
 of the sciences which are laid under contribu 
 tion by farming? Everything they do runs 
 into numbers, and we do more arithmetic than 
 the course requires. There isn t any branch 
 of study not even poetry and art and music 
 that isn t touched by life. If there is we haven t 
 time for it in the common schools. We work 
 out from life to everything in the course of 
 study." 
 
 "Do you mean to assert," queried Jennie, 
 "that while you have been doing all this work 
 which was never contemplated by those who 
 have made up the course of study, that you 
 haven t neglected anything?" 
 
 "I mean," said Jim, "that I m willing to 
 
160 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 stand or fall on an examination of these chil 
 dren in the very text-books we are accused of 
 neglecting." 
 
 Jennie looked steadily at Jim for a full 
 minute, and at the clock. It was nearly time 
 for adjournment. 
 
 "How many pupils of the Woodruff school 
 are here ?" she asked. "All rise, please !" 
 
 A mass of the audience, in the midst of which 
 sat Jennie s father, rose at the request. 
 
 "Why," said Jennie, "I should say we had a 
 quorum, anyhow! How many will come back 
 to-morrow morning at nine o clock, and bring 
 your school-books? Please lift hands." 
 
 Nearly every hand went up. 
 
 "And, Mr. Irwin," she went on, "will you 
 have the school records, so we may be able to 
 ascertain the proper standing of these pupils?" 
 
 "I will," said Jim. 
 
 "Then," said Jennie, "we ll adjourn until 
 nine o clock. I hope to see every one here. 
 We ll have school here to-morrow. And, Mr. 
 Irwin, please remember that you state that 
 you ll stand or fall on the mastery by these 
 
FAME OR NOTORIETY 161 
 
 pupils of the text-books they are supposed to 
 have neglected." 
 
 "Not the mastery of the text," said Jim. 
 "But their ability to do the work the text is 
 supposed to fit them for." 
 
 "Well," said Jennie, "I don t know but that s 
 fair." 
 
 "But," said Mrs. Haakon Peterson, "we 
 don t want our children brought up to be yust 
 farmers. Suppose we move to town where 
 does the culture come in?" 
 
 
 The Chicago papers had a news item which 
 covered the result of the examinations; but 
 the great sensation of the Woodruff District 
 lay in the Sunday feature carried by one of 
 them. 
 
 It had a picture of Jim Irwin, and one of 
 Jennie Woodruff the latter authentic, and 
 the former gleaned from the morgue, and ap 
 parently the portrait of a lumber- jack. There 
 was also a very free treatment by the car 
 toonist of Mr. Simms carrying a rifle with the 
 intention of shooting up the school board in 
 
162 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 case the decision went against the school 
 master. 
 
 "When it became known," said the news 
 story, "that the schoolmaster had bet his job 
 on the proficiency of his school in studies sup 
 posed and alleged to have been studiously 
 neglected, the excitement rose to fever heat. 
 Local sports bet freely on the result, the odds 
 being eight to five on General Proficiency 
 against the field. The field was Jim Irwin and 
 his school. And the way those rural kids rose 
 in their might and ate up the text-books was 
 simply scandalous. There was a good deal of 
 nervousness on the part of some of the small 
 starters, and some bursts of tears at excusable 
 failures. But when the fight was over, and 
 the dead and wounded cared for, the school 
 board and the county superintendent were 
 forced to admit that they wished the average 
 school could do as well under a similar test. 
 
 "The local Mr. Dooley is Cornelius Bonner, 
 a member of the board. When asked for a 
 statement of his views after the county superin 
 tendent had decided that her old sweetheart 
 was to be allowed the priceless boon of earning 
 forty dollars a month during the remainder 
 of his contract, Mr. Bonner said, Aside from 
 being licked, we re all right. But we ll get this 
 guy j^et, don t fall down and f ergit that ! 
 
 " The examinations tind to show/ said Mr. 
 Bonner, when asked for his opinion on the re- 
 
FAME OR NOTORIETY 163 
 
 suit, that in or-r-rder to larn anything you 
 shud shtudy somethin ilse. But we ll git this 
 guy yit ! 
 
 "Jim," said Colonel Woodruff, as they rode 
 home together, "the next heat is the school 
 election. "We ve got to control that board next 
 year and we ve got to do it by electing one 
 out of three." 
 
 "Is that a possibility?" asked Jim. "Aren t 
 we sure to be defeated at last? Shouldn t I quit 
 at the end of my contract? All I ever hoped for 
 was to be allowed to fulfill that. And is it worth 
 the fight?" 
 
 "It s not only possible," replied the colonel, 
 "but probable. As for being worth while 
 why, this thing is too big to drop. I m just 
 beginning to understand what you re driving 
 at. And I like being a wild-eyed reformer more 
 and more." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE COLONEL TAKES THE FIELD 
 
 T^VERY Iowa county has its Farmers 
 Institute. Usually it is held in the county 
 seat, and is a gathering of farmers for the 
 ostensible purpose of listening to improving 
 discussions and addresses both instructive and 
 entertaining. Really, in most cases, the 
 farmers institutes have been occasions for the 
 cultivation of relations between a few of the 
 exceptional farmers and their city friends and 
 with one another. Seldom is anything done 
 which leads to any better selling methods for 
 the farmers, any organization looking to co 
 operative effort, or anything else that an agri 
 cultural economist from Ireland, Germany or 
 Denmark would suggest as the sort of action 
 which the American farmer must take if he is 
 to make the most of his life and labor. 
 
 The Woodruff District was interested in the 
 164 
 
THE COLONEL TAKES THE FIELD 165 
 
 institute however, because of the fact that a 
 rural-school exhibit was one of its features that 
 year, and that Colonel Woodruff had secured 
 an urgent invitation to the school to take part 
 in it. 
 
 "We ve got something new out in our district 
 school," said he to the president of the insti 
 tute. 
 
 "So I hear," said the president "mostly a 
 fight, isn t it?" 
 
 "Something more," said the colonel. "If 
 you ll persuade our school to make an exhibit 
 of real rural work in a real rural school, I ll 
 promise you something worth seeing and dis 
 cussing." 
 
 Such exhibits are now so common that it is 
 not worth while for us to describe it ; but then, 
 the sight of a class of children testing and 
 weighing milk, examining grains for viability 
 and foul seeds, planning crop rotations, judging 
 grains and live stock was so new in that county 
 as to be the real sensation of the institute. 
 
 Two persons were a good deal embarrassed 
 by the success of the exhibit. One was the 
 county superintendent, who was constantly in 
 
166 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 receipt of undeserved compliments upon her 
 wisdom in fostering really "practical work in 
 the schools." The other was Jim Irwin, who 
 was becoming famous, and who felt he had 
 done nothing to deserve fame. Professor 
 Withers, an extension lecturer from Ames, took 
 Jim to dinner at the best hotel in the town, for 
 the purpose of talking over with him the needs 
 of the rural schools. Jim was in agony. The 
 colored waiter fussed about trying to keep Jim 
 in the beaten track of hotel manners, restored 
 to him the napkin which Jim failed to use, 
 and juggled back into place the silverware 
 which Jim misappropriated to alien and un 
 usual uses. But, when the meal had progressed 
 to the stage of conversation, the waiter noticed 
 that gradually the uncouth farmer became 
 master of the situation, and the well-groomed 
 college professor the interested listener. 
 
 "You ve got to come down to our farmers 
 week next year, and tell us about these things," 
 said he to Jim. "Can t you ?" 
 
 Jim s brain reeled. He go to a gathering of 
 real educators and tell his crude notions ! How 
 could he get the money for his expenses ? But 
 
THE COLONEL TAKES THE FIELD 167 
 
 he had that gameness which goes with supreme 
 confidence in the thing dealt with. 
 
 "I ll come," said he. 
 
 "Thank you," said the Ames man, "There s 
 a small honorarium attached, you know." 
 
 Jim was staggered. What was an honora 
 rium? He tried to remember what an honora 
 rium is, and could get no further than the 
 thought that it is in some way connected with 
 the Latin root of "honor." Was he obliged to 
 pay an honorarium for the chance to speak 
 before the college gathering? Well, he d save 
 money and pay it. The professor must be able 
 to understand that it couldn t be expected that 
 a country school-teacher would be able to pay 
 much. 
 
 "I I ll try to take care of the honorarium," 
 said he. "I ll come." 
 
 The professor laughed. It was the first joke 
 the gangling innovator had perpetrated. 
 
 "It won t bother you to take care of it," said 
 he, "but if you re not too extravagant it will 
 pay you your expenses and give you a few dol 
 lars over." 
 
 Jim breathed more freely. An honorarium 
 
168 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 was paid to the person receiving the honor, 
 then. What a relief! 
 
 "All right," he exclaimed. "I ll be glad to 
 come !" 
 
 "Let s consider that settled," said the 
 professor. "And now I must be going back to 
 the opera-house. My talk on soil sickness comes 
 next. I tell you, the winter wheat crop has 
 been" 
 
 But Jim was not able to think much of the 
 winter wheat problem as they went back to 
 the auditorium. He was worth putting on the 
 program at a state meeting! He was worth 
 the appreciation of a college professor, trained 
 to think on the very matters Jim had been 
 so long mulling over in isolation and blind 
 ness! He was actually worth paying for his 
 thoughts. 
 
 Calista Simms thought she saw something 
 shining and saint-like about the homely face 
 of her teacher as he came to her at her post 
 in the room in which the school exhibit was 
 held. Calista was in charge of the little chil 
 dren whose work was to be demonstrated that 
 day, and was in a state of exaltation to which 
 
THE COLONEL TAKES THE FIELD 169 
 
 her starved being had hitherto been a stranger. 
 Perhaps there was something similar in her 
 condition of fervent happiness to that of Jim t 
 She, too, was doing something outside the 
 sordid life of the Simms cabin. She yearned 
 over the children in her care, and would have 
 been glad to die for them and besides was not 
 Newton Bronson in charge of the corn exhibit, 
 and a member of the corn- judging team? To 
 the eyes of the town girls who passed about 
 among the exhibits, she was poorly dressed; 
 but if they could have seen the clothes she 
 had worn on that evening when Jim Irwin 
 first called at their cabin and failed to give a 
 whoop from the big road, they could perhaps 
 have understood the sense of wellbeing and 
 happiness in Calista s soul at the feeling of her 
 whole clean underclothes, her neat, if cheap, 
 dress, and the "boughten" cloak she wore and 
 any of them, even without knowledge of this, 
 might have understood Calista s joy at the 
 knowledge that Newton Bronson s eyes were 
 on her from his station by the big pillar, no 
 matter how many town girls filed by. For 
 therein they would have been in a realm of 
 
170 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 the passions quite universal in its appeal to the 
 feminine soul. 
 
 "Hello, Calista!" said Jim. "How are you 
 enjoying it?" 
 
 "Oh!" said Calista, and drew a long, long 
 breath. "Ah m enjoying myse f right much, 
 Mr. Jim." 
 
 "Any of the home folks coming in to see?" 
 
 "Yes, seh," answered Calista. "All the 
 school board have stopped by this morning." 
 
 Jim looked about him. He wished he could 
 see and shake hands with his enemies, Bronson, 
 Peterson and Bonner : and if he could tell them 
 of his success with Professor Withers of the 
 State Agricultural College, perhaps they would 
 feel differently toward him. There they were 
 now, over in a corner, with their heads to 
 gether. Perhaps they were agreeing among 
 themselves that he was right in his school 
 methods, and they wrong. He went toward 
 them, his face still beaming with that radiance 
 which had shone so plainly to the eyes of 
 Calista Simms, but they saw in it only a grin 
 of exultation over his defeat of them at the 
 
THE COLONEL TAKES THE FIELD 171 
 
 hearing before Jennie Woodruff. When Mm 
 had drawn so close as almost to call for the 
 extended hand, he felt the repulsion of their 
 attitudes and sheered off on some pretended 
 errand to a dark corner across the room. 
 
 They resumed their talk. 
 
 "I m a Dimocrat," said Con Bonner, "and you 
 fellers is Republicans, and we ve fought each 
 other about who we was to hire for teacher; 
 but when it comes to electing my successor, I 
 think we shouldn t divide on party lines." 
 
 "The fight about the teacher," said Haakon 
 Peterson, "is a t ing of the past. All our can 
 didates got odder yobs now." 
 
 "Yes," said Ezra Bronson. "Prue Foster 
 wouldn t take our school now if she could 
 get it." 
 
 "And as I was sayin ," went on Bonner, "I 
 want to get this guy, Jim Irwin. An bein 
 the cause of his gittin the school, I d like to be 
 on the board to kick him off; but if you fellers 
 would like to have some one else, I won t run, 
 and if the right feller is named, I ll line up 
 what friends I got for him." 
 
172 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "You got no friend can git as many wotes as 
 you can," said Peterson. "I tank you better 
 run." 
 
 "What say, Ez?" asked Bonner. 
 
 "Suits me all right," said Bronson. "I guess 
 we three have had our fight out and understand 
 each other." 
 
 "All right," returned Bonner, "I ll take the 
 office again. Let s not start too soon, but say 
 we begin about a week from Sunday to line up 
 our friends, to go to the school election and 
 vote kind of unanimous-like ?" 
 
 "Suits me," said Bronson. 
 
 "Wery well," said Peterson. 
 
 "I don t like the way Colonel Woodruff acts," 
 said Bonner. "He rounded up that gang of 
 kids that shot us all to pieces at that hearing, 
 didn t he?" 
 
 "I tank not," replied Peterson. "I tank he 
 was yust interested in how Yennie managed it." 
 
 "Looked mighty like he was managin the 
 demonstration," said Bonner. "What d ye 
 think, Ez?" 
 
 "Too small a matter for the colonel to monkey 
 with," said Bronson. "I reckon he was just 
 
THE COLONEL TAKES THE FIELD 173 
 
 interested in Jennie s dilemmer. It ain t rea 
 sonable that Colonel Woodruff after the political 
 career he s had would mix up in school district 
 politics." 
 
 "Well," said Bonner, "he seems to take a lot 
 of interest in this exhibition here. I think 
 we d better watch the colonel. That decision 
 of Jennie s might have been because she s stuck 
 on Jim Irwin, or because she takes a lot of 
 notice of what her father says." 
 
 "Or she might have thought the decision was 
 right," said Bronson. "Some people do, you 
 know." 
 
 "Right!" scoffed Bonner. "In a pig s wrist! 
 I tell you that decision was crooked." 
 
 "Veil," said Haakon Peterson, "talk of 
 crookedness wit Yennie Woodruff don t get 
 wery fur wit me." 
 
 "Oh, I don t mean anything bad, Haakon," 
 replied Bonner, "but it wasn t an all-right de 
 cision. I think she s stuck on the guy." 
 
 The caucus broke up after making sure that 
 the three members of the school board would 
 be as one man in maintaining a hostile front 
 to Jim Irwin and his tenure of office. It 
 
174 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 looked rather like a foregone conclusion, in a 
 little district wherein there were scarcely 
 twenty-five votes. The three members of the 
 board with their immediate friends and de 
 pendents could muster two or three ballots 
 each and who was there to oppose them? Who 
 wanted to be school director? It was a post 
 of no profit, little honor and much vexation. 
 And yet, there are always men to be found 
 who covet such places. Curiously there are al 
 ways those who covet them for no ascertainable 
 reason, for often they are men who have no 
 theory of education to further, and no fondness 
 for affairs of the intellect. In the Woodruff 
 District, however, the incumbents saw no candi 
 date in view who could be expected to stand 
 up against the rather redoubtable Con Bonner. 
 Jim s hold upon his work seemed fairly secure 
 for the term of his contract, since Jennie had 
 decided that he was competent; and after that 
 he himself had no plans. He could not expect 
 to be retained by the men who had so bitterly 
 attacked him. Perhaps the publicity of his 
 Ames address would get him another place with 
 a sufficient stipend so that he could support hi* 
 
THE COLONEL TAKES THE FIELD 175 
 
 mother without the aid of the little garden, the 
 cows and the fowls and perhaps he would ask 
 Colonel Woodruff to take him back as a farm 
 hand. These thoughts thronged his mind as 
 he stood apart and alone after his rebuff by 
 the caucusing members of the school board. 
 
 "I don t see," said a voice over against the 
 cooking exhibit, "what there is in this to 
 set people talking? Buttonholes! Cookies! 
 Humph!" 
 
 It was Mrs. Bonner who had clearly come 
 to scoff. With her was Mrs. Bronson, whose 
 attitude was that of a person torn between 
 conflicting influences. Her husband had indi 
 cated to the crafty Bonner and the subtle Pet 
 erson that while he was still loyal to the school 
 board, and hence perforce opposed to Jim 
 Irwin, and resentful to the decision of the 
 county superintendent, his adhesion to the in 
 stitutions of the Woodruff District as handed 
 down by the fathers was not quite of the 
 thick-and-thin type. For he had suggested that 
 Jennie might have been sincere in rendering 
 her decision, and that some people agreed with 
 her: so Mrs. Bronson, while consorting with 
 
176 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 the censorious Mrs. Bonner evinced restiveness 
 when the school and its work was condemned. 
 Was not her Newton in charge of a part of 
 this show! Had he not taken great interest 
 in the project? Was he not an open and de 
 fiant champion of Jim Irwin, and a constant 
 and enthusiastic attendant upon, not only his 
 classes, but a variety of evening and Saturday 
 affairs at which the children studied arithmetic, 
 grammar, geography, writing and spelling, by 
 working on cows, pigs, chickens, grains, 
 grasses, soils and weeds? And had not New 
 ton become a better boy a wonderfully better 
 boy? Mrs. Bronson s heart was filled with re 
 sentment that she also could not be enrolled 
 among Jim Irwin s supporters. And when 
 Mrs. Bonner sneered at the buttonholes and 
 cookies, Mrs. Bronson, knowing how the little 
 fingers had puzzled themselves over the one, 
 and young faces had become floury and red 
 over the other, flared up a little. 
 
 "And I don t see," said she, "anything to 
 laugh at when the young girls do the best they 
 can to make themselves capable housekeepers. 
 I d like to help them." 
 
THE COLONEL TAKES THE FIELD 177 
 
 She turned to Mrs. Bonner as if to add "If 
 this be treason, make the most of it!" but 
 that lady was far too good a diplomat to be 
 cornered in the same enclosure with a rupture 
 of relations. 
 
 "And quite right, too," said she, "in the 
 proper place, and at the proper time. The 
 little things ought to be helped by every real 
 woman of course!" 
 
 "Of course," repeated Mrs. Bronson. 
 
 "At home, now., and by their mothers," added 
 Mrs. Bonner. 
 
 "Well," laid Mrs. Bronson, "take them 
 Simms girls, now. They have to have help 
 outside their home if they are ever going to 
 be like other folks." 
 
 "Yes," agreed Mrs. Bonner, "and a lot more 
 help than a farm-hand can give em in school. 
 Pretty poor trash, they, and I shouldn t wonder 
 if there was a lot we don t know about why 
 they come north." 
 
 "As for that," replied Mrs. Bronson, "I don t 
 know as it s any of my business so long as 
 they behave themselves." 
 
 Again Mrs. Bonner felt the situation get- 
 
178 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 ting out of hand, and again she returned to 
 the task of keeping Mrs. Bronson in alignment 
 with the forces of accepted Woodruff District 
 conditions. 
 
 "Ain t it some of our business?" she 
 queried. "I wonder now ! By the way Newtie 
 keeps his eye on that Simms girl, I shouldn t 
 wonder if it might turn out your business." 
 
 "Pshaw!" scoffed Mrs. Bronson. "Puppy 
 love!" 
 
 "You can t tell how far it ll go," persisted 
 Mrs. Bonner. "I tell you these schools are 
 getting to be nothing more than sparkin 
 bees, from the county superintendent down." 
 
 "Well, maybe," said Mrs. Bronson, "but I 
 don t see sparkin in everything boys and girls 
 do as quick as some." 
 
 "I wonder," said Mrs. Bonner, "if Colonel 
 Woodruff would be as friendly to Jim Irwin 
 if he knew that everybody says Jennie decided 
 he was to keep his certif kit because she wants 
 him to get along in the world, so he can marry 
 her?" 
 
 "I don t know as she is so very friendly to 
 
THE COLONEL TAKES THE FIELD 179 
 
 him," replied Mrs. Bronson; "and Jim and 
 Jennie are both of age, you know." 
 
 "Yes, but how about our schools bein ruined 
 by a love affair?" interrogated Mrs. Bonner, as 
 they moved away. "Ain t that your business 
 and mine?" 
 
 Instead of desiring further knowledge of 
 what they were discussing, Jim felt a dreadful 
 disgust at the whole thing. Disgust at being 
 the subject of gossip, at the horrible falsity 
 of the picture he had been able to paint to the 
 people of his objects and his ambitions, and 
 especially at the desecration of Jennie by such 
 misconstruction of her attitude toward him 
 officially and personally. Jennie was vexed at 
 him, and wanted him to resign from his posi 
 tion. He firmly believed that she was surprised 
 at finding herself convinced that he was en 
 titled to a decision in the matter of his compe 
 tency as a teacher. She was against him, he 
 believed, and as for her being in love with 
 him to hear these women discuss it was in 
 tolerable. 
 
 He felt his face redden as at the hearing of 
 
180 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 some horrible indecency. He felt himself 
 stripped naked, and he was hotly ashamed that 
 Jennie should be associated with him in the 
 exposure. And while he was raging inwardly, 
 paying the penalty of his new-found place in 
 the public eye a publicity to which he was 
 not yet hardened he heard other voices. Pro^ 
 fessor Withers, County Superintendent Jennie 
 and Colonel Woodruff were making an inspec 
 tion of the rural-school exhibit. 
 
 "I hear he has been having some trouble 
 with his school board," the professor was 
 saying. 
 
 "Yes," said Jennie, "he has." 
 
 "Wasn t there an effort made to remove him 
 from his position?" asked the professor. 
 
 "Proceedings before me to revoke his cer 
 tificate," replied Jennie. 
 
 "On what grounds?" 
 
 "Incompetency," answered Jennie. "I found 
 that his pupils were really doing very well in 
 the regular course of study which he seems 
 to be neglecting." 
 
 "Fm glad you supported him," said the 
 professor. "I m glad to find you helping him." 
 
THE COLONEL TAKES THE FIELD 181 
 
 "Really," protested Jennie, "I don t think 
 myself" 
 
 "What do you think of his notions?" asked 
 the colonel. 
 
 "Very advanced," replied Professor Withers. 
 "Where did he imbibe them all?" 
 
 "He s a Brown Mouse," said the colonel. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said the puzzled 
 professor. "I didn t quite understand. A a 
 what?" 
 
 "One of papa s breeding jokes," said Jennie. 
 "He means a phenomenon in heredity per 
 haps a genius, you know." 
 
 "Ah, I see," replied the professor, "a Men- 
 delian segregation, you mean?" 
 
 "Certainly," said the colonel. "The sort of 
 mind that imbibes things from itself." 
 
 "Well, he s rather wonderful," declared the 
 professor. "I had him to lunch to-day. He 
 surprised me. I have invited him to make an 
 address at Ames next winter during farmers 
 week." 
 
 "He?" 
 
 Jennie s tone showed her astonishment. Jim 
 the underling. Jim the off ox. Jim the thorn 
 
182 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 in the county superintendent s side. Jim the 
 country teacher! It was stupefying. 
 
 "Oh, you musn t judge him by his looks," 
 said the professor. "I really do hope he ll take 
 some advice on the matter of clothes put on 
 a cravat and a different shirt and collar when 
 he comes to Ames but I have no doubt he 
 will." 
 
 "He hasn t any other," said the colonel. 
 
 "Well, it won t signify, if he has the truth 
 to tell us," said the professor. 
 . "Has he?" asked Jennie. 
 
 "Miss Woodruff," replied the professor 
 earnestly, "he has something that looks toward 
 truth, and something that we need. Just how 
 far he will go, just what he will amount to, 
 it is impossible to say. But something must 
 be done for the rural schools something along 
 the lines he is trying to follow. He is a strug 
 gling soul, and he is worth helping. You won t 
 make any mistake if you make the most of Mr. 
 Irwin." 
 
 Jim slipped out of a side door and fled. As 
 in the case of the conversation between Mrs. 
 Bronson and Mrs. Bonner, he was unable to 
 
THE COLONEL TAKES THE FIELD 183 
 
 discern the favorable auspices in the showing 
 of adverse things. He had not sensed Mrs. 
 Bronson s half -concealed friendliness for him, 
 though it was disagreeably plain to Mrs. 
 Bonner. And now he neglected the colonel s 
 evident support of him, and Professor Withers 
 praise, in Jennie s manifest surprise that old 
 Jim had been accorded the recognition of a 
 place on a college program, and the profes 
 sor s criticism of his dress and general ap 
 pearance. 
 
 It was unjust! What chance had he been 
 given to discover what it was fashionable to 
 wear, even if he had had the money to buy 
 such clothes as other young men possessed? He 
 would never go near Ames! He would stay 
 in the Woodruff District where the people 
 knew him, and some of them liked him. He 
 would finish his school year, and go back to 
 work on the farm. He would abandon the 
 struggle. 
 
 He started home, on foot as he had come. 
 A mile or so out he was overtaken by the 
 colonel, driving briskly along with room in his 
 buggy for Jim. 
 
184 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "Climb in, Jim!" said he. "Dan and Dolly 
 didn t like to see you walk." 
 
 "They re looking fine," said Jim. 
 
 There is a good deal to say whenever two 
 horse lovers get together. Hoofs and coats 
 and frogs and eyes and teeth and the queer 
 sympathies between horse and man may some 
 times quite take the place of the weather for 
 an hour or so. But when Jim had alighted at 
 his own door, the colonel spoke of what had 
 been in his mind all the time. 
 
 "I saw Bonner and Haakon and Ez doing 
 some caucusing to-day," said he. "They expect 
 to elect Bonner to the board again." 
 
 "Oh, I suppose so," replied Jim. 
 
 "Well, what shall we do about it?" asked the 
 colonel. 
 
 "If the people want him " began Jim. 
 
 "The people," said the colonel, "must have 
 a choice offered to em, or how can you or any 
 man tell what they want? How can they tell 
 themselves?" 
 
 Jim was silent. Here was a matter on 
 which he really had no ideas except the broad 
 
THE COLONEL TAKES THE FIELD 185 
 
 and general one that truth is mighty and shall 
 prevail but that the speed of its forward 
 march is problematical. 
 
 "I think," said the colonel, "that if s up to 
 us to see that the people have a chance to 
 decide. It s really Bonner against Jim Irwin." 
 
 "That s rather startling," said Jim, "but I 
 suppose it s true. And much chance Jim Irwin 
 has!" 
 
 "I calculate," rejoined the colonel, "that 
 what you need is a champion." 
 
 "To do what?" 
 
 "To take that office away from Bonner." 
 
 "Who can do that?" 
 
 "Well, I m free to say I don t know that 
 any one can, but I m willing to try. I think 
 that in about a week I shall pass the word 
 around that I d like to serve my country on 
 the school board." 
 
 Jim s face lighted up and then darkened, 
 
 "Even then they d be two to one, Colonel." 
 
 "Maybe," replied the colonel, "and maybe 
 not. That would have to be figured on. A 
 cracked log splits easy." 
 
186 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 " Anyhow," Jim went on, "what s the use? I 
 shan t be disturbed this year and after that ; 
 what s the use?" 
 
 "Why, Jim," said the colonel, "you aren t 
 getting short of breath are you? Do I see 
 frost on your boots? I thought you good for 
 the mile, and you aren t turning out a quarter 
 horse, are you? I don t know what all it is 
 you want to do, but I don t believe you can 
 do it in nine months, can you?" 
 
 "Not in nine years !" replied Jim. 
 
 "Well, then, let s plan for ten years," said 
 the colonel. "I ain t going to become a re 
 former at my time of life as a temporary job. 
 Will you stick if we can swing the thing for 
 you?" 
 
 "I will," said Jim, in the manner of a person 
 taking the vows in some solemn initiation. 
 
 "All right," said the colonel. "We ll keep 
 quiet and see how many votes we can muster 
 up at the election. How many can you speak 
 for?" 
 
 Jim gave himself for a few minutes to 
 thought. It was a new thing to him, this mat- 
 fcer of mustering votes and a thing which he 
 
THE COLONEL TAKES THE FIELD 187 
 
 had always looked upon as rather reprehen 
 sible. The citizen should go forth with no 
 coercion, no persuasion, no suggestion, and 
 vote his sentiments. 
 
 "How many can you round up?" persisted 
 the colonel. 
 
 "I think," said Jim, "that I can speak for 
 myself and Old Man Simms !" 
 
 The colonel laughed. 
 
 "Fine politician!" he repeated. "Fine poli 
 tician ! Well, Jim, we may get beaten in this, 
 but if we are, let s not have them going away 
 picking their noses and saying they ve had nc 
 fight. You round up yourself and Old Man 
 Simms and I ll see what I can do I ll see what 
 I can do!" 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 A MINOR CASTS HALF A VOTE 
 
 TiTARCH came in like neither a lion nor a 
 * lamb, but was scarcely a week old before 
 the wild ducks had begun to score the sky 
 above Bronson s Slew looking for open water 
 and badly-harvested corn-fields. Wild geese, 
 too, honked from on high as if in wonder that 
 these great prairies on which their forefathers 
 had been wont fearlessly to alight had been 
 changed into a disgusting expanse of farms. II 
 geese are favored with the long lives in which 
 fable bids us believe, some of these venerable 
 honkers must have seen every vernal and au 
 tumnal phase of the transformation from 
 boundless prairie to boundless corn-land. I 
 sometimes seem to hear in the bewildering 
 trumpetings of wild geese a cry of surprise 
 and protest at the ruin of their former para 
 dise. Colonel Woodruff s hired man, Pete, 
 188 
 
A MINOR CASTS HALF A VOTE 189 
 
 had no such foolish notions, however. He 
 stopped Newton Bronson and Raymond Simms 
 as they tramped across the colonel s pasture, 
 gun in hand, trying to make themselves believe 
 that the shooting was good. 
 
 "This ain t no country to hunt in," said he. 
 "Did either of you fellows ever have any real 
 duck-shooting?" 
 
 "The mountings," said Raymond, "air poor 
 places for ducks." 
 
 "Not big enough water," suggested Pete. 
 "Some wood-ducks, I suppose?" 
 
 "Along the creeks and rivers, yes, seh," said 
 Raymond, "and sometimes a flock of wild geese 
 would get lost, and some bewildered, and a 
 man would shoot one or two from the tops of 
 the ridges but nothing to depend on." 
 
 "I ve never been nowhere," said Newton, 
 "except once to Minnesota and and that 
 wasn t in the shooting season." 
 
 A year ago Newton would have boasted of 
 having "bummed" his way to Faribault. His 
 hesitant speech was a proof of the embarrass 
 ment his new respectability sometimes inflicted 
 upon him. 
 
190 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "I used to shoot ducks for the market at 
 Spirit Lake," said Pete. "I know Fred Gilbert 
 just as well as I know you. If Fd a kep on 
 shooting I could have made my millions as 
 champion wing shot as easy as he has. He 
 didn t have nothing on me when we was both 
 shooting for a livin . But that s all over, now. 
 You ve got to go so fur now to get decent 
 shooting where the farmers won t drive you 
 off, that it costs nine dollars to send a post 
 card home." 
 
 "I think we ll have fine shooting on the slew 
 in a few days," said Newton. 
 
 "Humph!" scoffed Pete. "I give you my 
 word, if I hadn t promised the colonel I d stay 
 with him another year, I d take a side-door 
 Pullman for the Sand Hills of Nebraska or 
 the Devil s Lake country to-morrow if I had 
 a gun." 
 
 "If it wasn t for a passel of things that keep 
 me hyeh," said Raymond, "I d like to go too." 
 
 "The colonel," said Pete, "needs me. He 
 needs me in the election to-morrow. What s 
 the matter of your oP man, Newt? What for 
 
A MINOR CASTS HALF A VOTE 191 
 
 does he vote for that Bonner, and throw down 
 an old neighbor?" 
 
 "I can t do anything with him!" exclaimed 
 Newton irritably. "He s all tangled up with 
 Peterson and Bonner." 
 
 "Well," said Pete, "if he d just stay at home, 
 it would help some. If he votes for Bonner, 
 it ll be just about a stand-off." 
 
 "He never misses a vote!" said Newton 
 despairingly. 
 
 "Can t you cripple him someway?" asked 
 Pete jocularly. "Darned funny when a boy o 
 your age can t control his father s vote! So 
 long!" 
 
 "I wish I could vote !" grumbled Newton. "I 
 wish I could! We know a lot more about the 
 school, and Jim Irwin bein a good teacher than 
 dad does and we can t vote. Why can t folks 
 vote when they are interested in an election, 
 and know about the issues. It s tyranny that 
 you and I can t vote." 
 
 "I reckon," said Raymond, the conservative, 
 "that the old-time people that fixed it thata- 
 way knowed best." 
 
192 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "Rats!" sneered Newton, the iconoclast. 
 "Why, Calista knows more about the election of 
 school director than dad knows." 
 
 "That don t seem reasonable," protested 
 Raymond. "She s prejudyced, I reckon, in 
 favor of Mr. Jim Irwin." 
 
 "Well, dad s prejudiced against him, er, 
 no, he hain t either. He likes Jim. He s just 
 prejudiced against giving up his old notions. 
 No, he hain t neither I guess he s only preju 
 diced against seeming to give up some old no 
 tions he seemed to have once! And the kids 
 in school would be prejudiced right, anyhow!" 
 
 "Paw says he ll be on hand prompt," said 
 Raymond. "But he had to be p swaded right 
 much. Paw s proud and he cain t read." 
 
 "Sometimes I think the more people read the 
 less sense they ve got," said Newton. "I wish 
 I could tie dad up ! I wish I could get snakebit, 
 and make him go for the doctor !" 
 
 The boys crossed the ridge to the wooded 
 valley in which nestled the Simms cabin. They 
 found Mrs. Simms greatly exercised in her 
 mind because young McGeehee had been found 
 playing with some blue vitriol used by Ray- 
 
A MINOR CASTS HALF A VOTE 193 
 
 mond in his school work on the treatment of 
 seed potatoes for scab. 
 
 "His hands was all blue with it," said she. 
 "Do you reckon, Mr. Newton, that it ll pizen 
 him?" 
 
 "Did he swallow any of it?" asked Newton. 
 
 "Nah!" said McGeehee scornfully. 
 
 Newton reassured Mrs. Simms, and went 
 away pensive. He was in rebellion against the 
 strange ways grown men have of discharging 
 their duties as citizens a rather remarkable 
 thing, and perhaps a proof that Jim Irwin s 
 methods had already accomplished much in 
 preparing Newton and Raymond for citizen 
 ship. He had shown them the fact that voting 
 really has some relation to life. At present, 
 however, the new wine in the old bottles was 
 causing Newton to forget his filial duty, and 
 his respect for his father. He wished he could 
 lock him up in the barn so he couldn t go to 
 the school election. He wished he could become 
 ill or poisoned with blue vitriol or something 
 so his father would be obliged to go for a 
 
 doctor. He wished well, why couldn t he 
 
 get sick. Mrs. Simms had been about to send 
 
194 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 for the doctor for Buddy when he had ex 
 plained away the apparent necessity. People 
 
 got dreadfully scared about poison Newton 
 
 mended his pace, and looked happier. He 
 looked very much as he had done on the day 
 he adjusted the needle-pointed muzzle to his 
 dog s nose. He looked, in fact, more like a 
 person filled with deviltry, than one yearning 
 for the right to vote. 
 
 "I ll fix him!" said he to himself. 
 
 "What time s the election, Ez?" asked Mrs. 
 Bronson at breakfast. 
 
 "I m goin at four o clock," said Ezra. "And 
 i. don t want to hear any more from any one" 
 looking at Newton "about the election. It s 
 none of the business of the women an boys." 
 
 Newton took this reproof in an unexpectedly 
 submissive spirit. In fact, he exhibited his 
 very best side to the family that morning, like 
 one going on a long journey, or about to be 
 married off, or engaged in some deep dark 
 plot. 
 
 "I s pose you re off trampin the slews at 
 the sight of a fiock of ducks four miles off as 
 usual?" stated Mr. Bronson challengingly. 
 
A MINOR CASTS HALF A VOTE 195 
 
 "I thought," said Newton, "that I d get a 
 lot of raisin bait ready for the pocket-gophers 
 in the lower meadow. They ll be throwing up 
 their mounds by the first of April." 
 
 "Not them," said Mr. Bronson, somewhat 
 mollified, "not before May. Where d you get 
 the raisin idee?" 
 
 "We learned it in school," answered Newton. 
 "Jim had me study a bulletin on the control 
 and eradication of pocket-gophers. You use 
 raisins with strychnine in em and it tells 
 how." 
 
 "Some fool notion, I s pose," said Mr. 
 Bronson, rising. "But go ahead if you re care 
 ful about handlin the strychnine." 
 
 Newton spent the time from twelve-thirty 
 to half after two in watching the clock; and 
 twenty minutes to three found him seated in 
 the woodshed with a pen-knife in his hand, a 
 small vial of strychnine crystals on a stand 
 before him, a saucer of raisins at his right 
 hand, and one exactly like it, partially filled 
 with gopher bait by which is meant raisins 
 under the skin of each of which a minute 
 crystal of strychnine had been inserted on the 
 
196 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 point of the knife. Newton was apparently 
 happy and was whistling The Glow-Worm. It 
 was a lovely scene if one can forget the gopher s 
 point of view. 
 
 At three-thirty, Newton went into the house 
 and lay down on the horsehair sofa, saying to 
 his mother that he felt kind o funny and 
 thought he d lie down a while. At three-forty 
 he heard his father s voice in the kitchen and 
 knew that his sire was preparing to start for 
 the scene of battle between Colonel Woodruff 
 and Con Bonner, on the result of which hinged 
 the future of Jim Irwin and the Woodruff 
 school. 
 
 A groan issued from Newton s lips a 
 gruesome groan as of the painful death of a 
 person very sensitive to physical suffering. 
 But his father s voice from the kitchen door 
 betrayed no agitation. He was scolding the 
 horses as they stood tied to the hitching-post, 
 in tones that showed no knowledge of his 
 son s distressed moans. 
 
 "What s the matter?" 
 
 It was Newton s little sister who asked the 
 question, her facial expression evincing appre- 
 
A MINOR CASTS HALF A VOTE 197 
 
 elation of Newton s efforts in the line of 
 groans, somewhat touched with awe. Even 
 though regarded as a pure matter of make- 
 believe, such sounds were terrible. 
 
 "Oh, sister, sister!" howled Newton, "run 
 and tell em that brother s dying!" 
 
 Fanny disappeared in a manner which 
 expressed her balanced feelings she felt that 
 her brother was making believe, but she be 
 lieved for all that, that something awful was 
 the matter. So she went rather slowly to the 
 kitchen door, and casually remarked that 
 Newton was dying on the sofa in the sitting- 
 room. 
 
 "You little fraud!" said her father. 
 
 "Why, Fanny!" said her mother and ran 
 into the sitting-room whence in a moment, 
 with a cry that was almost a scream, she sum 
 moned her husband, who responded at the top 
 of his speed. 
 
 Newton was groaning and in convulsions. 
 Horrible grimaces contorted his face, his jaws 
 were set, his arms and legs drawn up, and 
 his muscles tense. 
 
 "What s the matter ?" His father s voice was 
 
THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 stern as well as full of anxiety. "What s the 
 matter, boy?" 
 
 "Oh!" cried Newton. "Oh! Oh! Oh!" 
 
 "Newtie, Newtie!" cried his mother, "where 
 are you in pain? Tell mother, Newtie!" 
 
 "Oh," groaned Newtie, relaxing, "I feel 
 awful!" 
 
 "What you been eating?" interrogated his 
 father. 
 
 "Nothing," replied Newton. 
 
 "I saw you eatin dinner," said his father. 
 
 Again Newton was convulsed by strong 
 spasms, and again his groans filled the hearts 
 of his parents with terror. 
 
 "That s all I ve eaten," said he, when his 
 spasms had passed, "except a few raisins. I 
 was putting strychnine in em - " 
 
 "Oh, heavens!" cried his mother. "He s 
 poisoned ! Drive for the doctor, Ezra ! Drive !" 
 
 Mr. Bronson forgot all about the election 
 forgot everything save antidotes and speed. He 
 leaped toward the door. As he passed out, he 
 shouted "Give him an emetic!" He tore the 
 hitching straps from the posts, jumped into the 
 buggy and headed for the road. Skilfully avoid- 
 
A MINOR CASTS HALF A VOTE 199 
 
 ing an overturn as he rounded into the high 
 way, he gave the spirited horses their heads, 
 and fled toward town, carefully computing the 
 speed the horses could make and still be able 
 to return. Mile after mile he covered, passing 
 teams, keeping ahead of automobiles and ad 
 vertising panic. Just at the town limits, he 
 met the doctor in Sheriff Dilly s automobile, 
 the sheriff himself at the steering wheel. Mr. 
 Bronson signaled them to stop, ignoring the 
 fact that they were making similar signs to 
 him. 
 
 "We re just starting for your place," said 
 the doctor. "Your wife got me on the phone." 
 
 "Thank God!" replied Bronson. "Don t fool 
 any time away on me. Drive !" 
 
 "Get in here, Ez," said the sheriff. "Doc 
 knows how to drive, and I ll come on with your 
 team. They need a slow drive to cool em off." 
 
 "Why didn t you phone me?" asked the 
 doctor. 
 
 "Never thought of it," replied Bronson. "I 
 hain t had the phone only a few years. Drive 
 faster!" 
 
 "I want to get there, or I would," answered 
 
200 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 the doctor. "Don t worry. From what your 
 wife told me over the phone I don t believe 
 the boy s eaten any more strychnine than I 
 have and probably not so much." 
 
 "He was alive, then?" 
 
 "Alive and making an argument against 
 taking the emetic," replied the doctor. "But 
 I guess she got it down him." 
 
 "I d hate to lose that boy, Doc!" 
 
 "I don t believe there s any danger. It 
 doesn t sound like a genuine poisoning case 
 to me." 
 
 Thus reassured, Mr. Bronson was calm, even 
 if somewhat tragic in calmness, when he 
 entered the death chamber with the doctor. 
 Newton was sitting up, his eyes wet, and his 
 face pale. His mother had won the argument, 
 and Newton had lost his dinner. Haakon 
 Peterson occupied an armchair. 
 
 "What s all this?" asked the doctor. "How 
 you feeling, Newt? Any pain?" 
 
 "I m all right," said Newton. "Don t give 
 me any more o that nasty stuff!" 
 
 "No," said the doctor, "but if you don t tell 
 me just what you ve been eating, and doing, 
 
A MINOR CASTS HALF A VOTE 201 
 
 and pulling off on us, I ll use this" and the 
 doctor exhibited a huge stomach pump. 
 
 "What ll you do with that?" asked Newton 
 faintly. 
 
 "I ll put this down into your hold, and unload 
 you, that s what I ll do." 
 
 "Is the election over, Mr. Peterson?" asked 
 Newton. 
 
 "Yes," answered Mr. Peterson, "and the 
 votes counted." 
 
 "Who s elected?" asked Newton. 
 
 "Colonel Woodruff," answered Mr. Peterson. 
 "The vote was twelve to eleven." 
 
 "Well, dad," said Newton, "I s pose you ll 
 be sore, but the only way I could see to get in 
 half a vote for Colonel Woodruff Vas to get 
 poisoned and send you after the doctor. If 
 you d gone, it would a* been a tie, anyhow, and 
 probably you d a persuaded somebody to 
 change to Bonner. That s what s the matter 
 with me. I killed your vote. Now, you can 
 do whatever you like to me but I m sorry I 
 scared mother." 
 
 Ezra Bronson seized Newton by the 
 throat, but his fingers failed to close. "Don t 
 
202 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 pinch, dad," said Newton. "I ve been using 
 that neck an it s tired." Mr. Bronson dropped 
 his hands to his sides, glared at his son for a 
 moment and breathed a sigh of relief. 
 
 "Why, you darned infernal little fool," said 
 he. "I ve a notion to take a hamestrap to 
 you! If I d been there the vote would have 
 been eleven to thirteen!" 
 
 "There was plenty wotes there for the colonel, 
 if he needed em," said Haakon, whose poli 
 tician s mind was already fully adjusted to the 
 changed conditions. "Ay tank the Woodruff 
 District will have a j unanimous school board 
 from dis time on once more. Colonel Wood 
 ruff is yust the man we have needed." 
 
 "I m with you there," said Bronson. "And 
 as for you, young man, if one or both of them 
 horses is hurt by the run I give them, I ll lick 
 
 you within an inch of your life Here 
 
 comes Dilly driving em in now I guess 
 
 they re all right. I wouldn t want to drive a 
 good team to death for any young hoodlum like 
 
 him All right, how much do I owe you. 
 
 Doc?" 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 THE GLORIOUS FOURTH 
 
 A GOOD deal of water ran under the 
 *** Woodruff District bridges in the weeks 
 between the school election and the Fourth 
 of July picnic at Eight-Mile Grove. They were 
 very important weeks to Jim Irwin, though 
 outwardly uneventful. Great events are often 
 mere imperceptible developments of the 
 spirit. 
 
 Spring, for instance, brought a sort of 
 spiritual crisis to Jim; for he had to face the 
 accusing glance of the fields as they were 
 plowed and sown while he lived indoors. As 
 he labored at the tasks of the Woodruff school 
 he was conscious of a feeling not very easily 
 distinguished from a sense of guilt. It seemed 
 that there must be something almost wicked 
 in his failure to be afield with his team in the 
 early spring mornings when the woolly anem- 
 203 
 
204 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 ones appeared in their fur coats, the heralds 
 of the later comers violets, sweet-williams, 
 puccoons, and the scarlet prairie lilies. 
 
 A moral crisis accompanies the passing of 
 a man from the struggle with the soil to any 
 occupation, the productiveness of which is not 
 quite so clear. It requires a keenly sensitive 
 nature to feel conscious of it, but Jim Irwin 
 possessed such a temperament; and from the 
 beginning of the daily race with the seasons, 
 which makes the life of a northern farmer an 
 eight months Marathon in which to fall be 
 hind for a week is to lose much of the year s 
 reward, the gawky schoolmaster slept uneasily, 
 and heard the earliest cock-crow as a soldier 
 hears a call to arms to which he has made up 
 his mind he will not respond. 
 
 I think there is a real moral principle 
 involved. I believe that this deep instinct for 
 labor in and about the soil is a valid one, and 
 that the gathering together of people in cities 
 has been at the cost of an obscure but actual 
 moral shock. 
 
 I doubt if the people of the cities can ever 
 be at rest in a future full of moral searchings 
 
THE GLORIOUS FOURTH 205 
 
 of conscience until every man has traced 
 definitely the connection of the work he is 
 doing with the maintenance of his country s 
 population. Sometimes those vocations whose 
 connection can not be so traced will be recog 
 nized as wicked ones, and people engaged in 
 them will feel as did Jim until he worked out 
 the facts in the relation of school-teaching to 
 the feeding, clothing and sheltering of the 
 world. Most school-teaching he believed cor 
 rectly or incorrectly has very little to do with 
 the primary task of the human race ; but as far 
 as his teaching was concerned, even he be 
 lieved in it. If by teaching school he could 
 not make a greater contribution to the produc 
 tiveness of the Woodruff District than by 
 working in the fields, he would go back to the 
 fields. Whether he could make his teaching 
 thus productive or not was the very fact in 
 issue between him and the local body politic. 
 These are some of the waters that ran under 
 the bridges before the Fourth of July picnic at 
 Eight-Mile Grove. Few surface indications 
 there were of any change in the little commun 
 ity in this annual gathering of friends and 
 
206 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 neighbors. Wilbur Smythe made the annual 
 address, and was in rather finer fettle than 
 usual as he paid his fervid tribute to the starry 
 flag, and to this very place as the most favored 
 spot in the best country of the greatest state 
 in the most powerful, intellectual, freest and 
 most progressive nation in the best possible 
 of worlds. Wilbur was going strong. Jim Irwin 
 read the Declaration rather well, Jennie Wood 
 ruff thought, as she sat on the platform be 
 tween Deacon Avery, the oldest settler in the 
 district, and Mrs. Columbus Brown, the sole 
 local representative of the Daughters of the 
 American Revolution. Colonel Woodruff pre 
 sided in his Grand Army of the Republic 
 uniform. 
 
 The fresh northwest breeze made free with 
 the oaks, elms, hickories and box-elders of 
 Eight-Mile Grove, and the waters of Pickerel 
 Creek glimmered a hundred yards away, beyond 
 the flitting figures of the boys who preferred 
 to shoot off their own fire-crackers and tor 
 pedoes and nigger-chasers, rather than to 
 listen to those of Wilbur Smythe. Still farther 
 off could be heard the voice of a lone lemonade 
 
THE GLORIOUS FOURTH 207 
 
 vender as he advertised ice-cold lemonade, 
 made in, the shade, with a brand-new spade, 
 by an old maid, as a guaranty that it was the 
 blamedest, coldest lemonade ever sold. And 
 under the shadiest trees a few incorrigible 
 Marthas were spreading the snowy table 
 cloths on which would soon be placed the boun 
 tiful repasts stored in ponderous wicker bas 
 kets and hampers. It was a lovely day, in a 
 lovely spot a good example of the miniature 
 forests which grew naturally from time im 
 memorial in favored locations on the Iowa 
 prairies half a square mile of woodland, all 
 about which the green corn-rows stood aslant 
 in the cool breeze, "waist-high and laid by." 
 
 They were passing down the rough board 
 steps from the platform after the exercises had 
 terminated in a rousing rendition of America, 
 when Jennie Woodruff, having slipped by 
 everybody else to reach him, tapped Jim Irwin 
 on the arm. He looked back at her over his 
 shoulder with his slow gentle smile. 
 
 "Isn t your mother here, Jim?" she asked. 
 Tve been looking all over the crowd and can t 
 see her." 
 
208 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "She isn t here," answered Jim. "I was in 
 hopes that when she broke loose and went to 
 your Christmas dinner she would stay loose 
 but she went home and settled back into her 
 rut." 
 
 "Too bad," said Jennie. "She d have had a 
 nice time if she had come." 
 
 "Yes," said Jim, "I believe she would." 
 
 "I want help," said Jennie. "Our hamper 
 is terribly heavy. Please!" 
 
 It was rather obvious to Mrs. Bonner that 
 Jennie was throwing herself at Jim s head ; but 
 that was an article of the Bonner family creed 
 since the decision which closed the hearing at 
 the court-house. It must be admitted that the 
 young county superintendent found tasks which 
 kept the schoolmaster very close to her side. He 
 carried the hamper, helped Jennie to spread the 
 cloth on the grass, went with her to the well 
 for water and cracked ice wherewith to cool it. 
 In fact, he quite cut Wilbur Smythe out when 
 that gentleman made ponderous efforts to ob 
 tain a share of the favor implied in these per 
 missions. 
 
 "Sit down, Jim," said Mrs. Woodruff, "you ve 
 

 She tapped Jim Irwin on tlie arm 
 
THE GLORIOUS FOURTH 209 
 
 earned a bite of what we ve got. It s good 
 enough, what there is of it, and there s enough 
 of it, such as it is !" 
 
 "I m sorry," said Jim, "but I ve a prior en 
 gagement." 
 
 "Why, Jim!" protested Jennie. "I ve been 
 counting on you. Don t desert me !" 
 
 "I m awfully sorry," said Jim, "but I prom 
 ised. I ll see you later." 
 
 One might have thought, judging by the 
 colonel s quizzical smile, that he was pleased at 
 Jennie s loss of her former swain. 
 
 "We ll have to invite Jim longer ahead of 
 time," said he. "He s getting to be in demand." 
 
 He seemed to be in demand a fact that Jen 
 nie confirmed by observation as she chatted 
 with Deacon Avery, Mrs. Columbus Brown and 
 her husband, and the Orator of the Day, at the 
 table set apart for the guests and notables. Jim 
 received a dozen invitations as he passed the 
 groups seated on the grass one of them from 
 Mrs. Cornelius Bonner, who saw no particular 
 point in advertising disgruntlement. The chil 
 dren ran to him and clung to his hands ; young 
 girls gave him sisterly smiles and such trifles 
 
210 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 as chicken drumsticks, pieces of cake and like 
 tidbits. His passage to the numerous group 
 at a square table under a big burr-oak was 
 quite an ovation an ovation of the signifi 
 cance of which he was himself quite unaware. 
 The people were just friendly, that was all 
 to his mind. 
 
 But Jennie the daughter of a politician and 
 a promising one herself Jennie sensed the 
 fact that Jim Irwin had won something from 
 the people of the Woodruff District in the way 
 of deference. Still he was the gangling, Lin- 
 colnian, ill-dressed, poverty-stricken Jim Irwin 
 of old, but Jennie had no longer the feeling 
 that one s standing was somewhat compro 
 mised by association with him. He had begun 
 to put on something more significant than 
 clothes, something which he had possessed all 
 the time, but which became valid only as it was 
 publicly apprehended. There was a slight air 
 of command in his down-sitting and up-rising 
 at the picnic. He was clearly the central fig 
 ure of his group, in which she recognized the 
 Bronsons, those queer children from Tennes- 
 
THE GLORIOUS FOURTH 211 
 
 see, the Simmses, the Talcotts, the Hansens, 
 the Hamms and Colonel Woodruff s hired man, 
 Pete, whose other name is not recorded. 
 
 Jim sat down between Bettina Hansen, a 
 flaxen-haired young Brunhilde of seventeen, 
 and Calista Simms Jennie saw him do it, 
 while listening to Wilbur Smythe s account of 
 the exacting nature of the big law practise he 
 was building up, and would have been glad to 
 exchange places with Calista or Bettina. 
 
 The repast drew to a close ; and over by the 
 burr-oak the crowd had grown to a circle sur 
 rounding Jim Irwin. 
 
 "He seems to be making an address," said 
 Wilbur Smythe. 
 
 "Well, Wilbur," replied the colonel, "you had 
 the first shot at us. Suppose we move over 
 and see what s under discussion." 
 
 As they approached the group, they heard 
 Jim Irwin answering something which Ezra 
 Bronson had said. 
 
 "You think so, Ezra," said he, "and it seems 
 reasonable that big creameries like those at 
 Omaha, Sioux City, Des Moines and the other 
 
212 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 centralizer points can make butter cheaper 
 than we would do here but we ve the figures 
 that show that they aren t economical." 
 
 "They can t make good butter, for one 
 thing," said Newton Bronson cockily. 
 
 "Why can t they?" asked Olaf Hansen, the 
 father of Bettina. 
 
 "Well," said Newton, "they have to have so 
 much cream that they ve got to ship it so far 
 that it gets rotten on the way, and they have 
 to renovate it with lime and other ingredients 
 before they can churn it." 
 
 "Well," said Raymond Simms, "I reckon they 
 sell their butter f o all it s wuth ; an they cain t 
 get within from foah to seven cents, a pound 
 as much fo it as the farmers creameries in 
 Wisconsin and Minnesota get fo theirs." 
 
 "That s a fact, Olaf," said Jim. 
 
 "How do you kids know so darned much 
 about it?" queried Pete. 
 
 "Huh!" sniffed Bettina. "We ve been read 
 ing about it, and writing letters about it, and 
 figuring percentages on it in school all winter. 
 We ve done arithmetic and geography and 
 grammar and 1 don t know what else on it." 
 
THE GLORIOUS FOURTH 213 
 
 "Well, I m agin any schoolin ," said Pete, 
 "that makes kids smarter in f armin than their 
 parents and their parents hired men. Gi me 
 another swig o that lemonade, Jim!" 
 
 "You see," said Jim to his audience, mean 
 while pouring the lemonade, "the centralizer 
 creamery is uneconomic in several ways. It 
 has to pay excessive transportation charges. 
 It has to pay excessive commissions to its cream 
 buyers. It has to accept cream without proper 
 inspection, and mixes the good with the bad. 
 It makes such long shipments that the cream 
 spoils in transit and lowers the quality of the 
 butter. It can t make the best use of the but 
 termilk. All these losses and leaks the farm 
 ers have to stand. I can prove and so can 
 the six or eight pupils in the Woodruff school 
 who have been working on the cream question 
 this winter that we could make at least six 
 cents a pound on our butter if we had a co 
 operative creamery and all sent our cream 
 to it." 
 
 "Well," said Ezra Bronson, "let s start 
 one." 
 
 "I ll o in." said Olaf Hansen. 
 
214 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "Me, too," said Con Bonner. 
 
 There was a general chorus of assent. Jim 
 had convinced his audience. 
 
 "He s got the jury," said Wilbur Smythe to 
 Colonel Woodruff. 
 
 "Yes," said the colonel, "and right here is 
 where he runs into danger. Can he handle the 
 crowd when it s with him?" 
 
 "Well," said Jim, "I think we ought to or 
 ganize one, but I ve another proposition first. 
 Let s get together and pool our cream. By 
 that, I mean that we ll all sell to the same 
 creamery, and get the best we can out of the 
 centralizers by the cooperative method. We 
 can save two cents a pound in that way, and 
 we ll learn to cooperate. When we have found 
 just how well we can hang together, we ll be 
 able to take up the cooperative creamery, with 
 less danger of falling apart and failing." 
 
 "Who ll handle the pool?" inquired Mr. 
 Hansen. 
 
 "We ll handle it in the school," answered 
 Jim. 
 
 "School s about done," objected Mr. Bronson, 
 
 "Won t the cream pool pretty near pay the 
 
THE GLORIOUS FOURTH 215 
 
 expenses of running the school all summer?" 
 asked Bonner. 
 
 "We ought to run the school plant all the 
 time," said Jim. "It s the only way to get full 
 value out of the investment. And we ve corn- 
 club work, pig-club work, poultry work and 
 canning-club work which make it very desira 
 ble to keep in session with only a week s vaca 
 tion. If you ll add the cream pool, it will make 
 the school the hardest working crowd in the dis 
 trict and doing actual farm work, too. I like 
 Mr. Bonner s suggestion." 
 
 "Well," said Haakon Peterson, who had 
 joined the group, "Ay tank we better have a 
 meeting of the board and discuss it." 
 
 "Well, darn it," said Columbus Brown, "I 
 want in on this cream pool and I live outside 
 the district!" 
 
 "We ll let you in, dumb," said the colonel. 
 
 "Sure!" said Pete. "We hain t no more 
 sense than to let any one in, Clumb. Come in, 
 the water s fine. We ain t proud!" 
 
 "Well," said Clumb, "if this feller is goin 
 to do school work of this kind, I want in the 
 district, too." 
 
216 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "We ll come to that one of these days," said 
 Jim. "The district is too small." 
 
 Wilbur Smythe s car stopped at the distant 
 gate and honked for him a signal which broke 
 up the party. Haakon Peterson passed the 
 word to the colonel and Mr. Bronson for a 
 board meeting the next evening. The picnic 
 broke up in a dispersion of staid married cou 
 ples to their homes, and young folks in top 
 buggies to dances and displays of fireworks in 
 the surrounding villages. Jim walked across 
 the fields to his home neither old nor young, 
 having neither sweetheart with whom to dance 
 nor farm to demand labor in its inexorable 
 chores. He turned after crawling through a 
 wire fence and looked longingly at Jennie as 
 she was suavely assisted into the car by the 
 frock-coated lawyer. 
 
 "You saw what he did?" said the colonel in 
 terrogatively, as he and his daughter sat on 
 the Woodruff veranda that evening. "Who 
 taught him the supreme wisdom of holding 
 back his troops when they grew too wild for 
 attack?" 
 
 "He may lose them," said Jennie. 
 
THE GLORIOUS FOURTH 217 
 
 "Not so," said the colonel. "Individuals of 
 the Brown Mouse type always succeed when 
 they find their environment. And I believe 
 Jim has found his." 
 
 "Well," said Jennie, "I wish his environ 
 ment would find him some clothes. It s a 
 shame the way he has to go looking. He d be 
 nice-appearing if he was dressed anyway." 
 
 "Would he?" queried the colonel. "I wonder,, 
 now! Well, Jennie, as his oldest friend hav 
 ing any knowledge of clothes, I think it s up 
 to you to act as a committee of one on Jim s 
 apparel." 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A TROUBLE SHOOTER 
 
 A SUDDEN July storm had drenched the 
 fields and filled the swales with water. 
 The cultivators left the corn-fields until the 
 next day s sun and a night of seepage might 
 once more fit the black soil for tillage. The 
 little boys rolled up their trousers and tramped 
 home from school with the rich mud squeezing 
 up between their toes, thrilling with the elec 
 tricity of clean-washed nature, and the little 
 girls rather wished they could go barefooted, 
 too, as, indeed, some of the more sensible did. 
 
 A lithe young man with climbers on his legs, 
 walked up a telephone pole by the roadside to 
 make some repairs to the wires, which had been 
 whipped into a "cross" by the wind of the storm 
 and the lashing of the limbs of the roadside 
 trees. He had tied his horse to a post up the 
 road, and was running out the trouble on the 
 218 
 
A TROUBLE SHOOTER 219 
 
 line, which was plentifully in evidence just 
 then. Wind and lightning had played hob with 
 the system, and the line repairer was cheer 
 fully profane, in the manner of his sort, glad 
 by reason of the fire of summer in his veins, 
 and incensed at the forces of nature which had 
 brought him out through the mud to the Wood 
 ruff District to do these piffling jobs that any 
 of the subscribers ought to have known how 
 to do themselves, and none of which took more 
 than a few minutes of his time when he reached 
 the seat of the difficulty. 
 
 Jim Irwin, his school out for the day, came 
 along the muddy road with two of his pupils, 
 a bare-legged little boy and a tall girl with 
 flaxen hair Bettina Hansen and her small 
 brother Hans, who refused to answer to any 
 name other than Hans Nilsen. His father s 
 name was Nils Hansen, and Hans, a born con 
 servative, being the son of Nils, regarded him 
 self as rightfully a Nilsen, and disliked the 
 "Hans Hansen" on the school register. Thus 
 do European customs sometimes survive among 
 us. 
 
 Hans strode through the pool of water which 
 
220 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 the shower had spread completely over the low 
 turnpike a few rods from the pole on which 
 the trouble shooter was at work, and the elec 
 trician ceased his labors and rested himself on 
 a cross-arm while he waited to see what the 
 flaxen-haired girl would do when she came to it. 
 
 Jim and Bettina stopped at the water s edge. 
 "Oh!" cried she, "I can t get through!" The 
 trouble shooter felt the impulse to offer his 
 aid, but thought it best on the whole, to leave 
 the matter in the hands of the lank school 
 master. 
 
 "I ll carry you across," said Jim. 
 
 "I m too heavy," answered Bettina. 
 
 "Nonsense!" said Jim. 
 
 "She s awful heavy," piped Hans. "Better 
 take off your shoes, anyhow!" 
 
 Jim thought of the welfare of his only good 
 trousers, and saw that Hans suggestion was 
 good; but a mental picture of himself with 
 shoes in hand and bare legs restrained him. 
 He took Bettina in his arms and went slowly 
 across, walking rather farther with his blush 
 ing burden than was strictly necessary. Bet 
 tina was undoubtedly heavy; but she was also 
 
A TROUBLE SHOOTER 221 
 
 wonderfully pleasant to feel in arms which had 
 never borne such a burden before; and her 
 arms about his neck as he slopped through the 
 pond were curiously thrilling. Her cheek 
 brushed his as he set her upon her feet and 
 felt, rather than thought, that if there had only 
 been a good reason for it, Bettina would have 
 willingly been carried much farther. 
 
 "How strong you are!" she panted. *Tm 
 awful heavy, ain t I?" 
 
 "Not very," said Jim, with scholastic ac 
 curacy. "You re just right. I I mean, 
 you re simply well-nourished and wholesomely 
 plump !" 
 
 Bettina blushed still more rosily. 
 
 "You ve ruined your clothes," said she. 
 "Now you ll have to come home with me and 
 let me see who s there!" 
 
 Jim looked up at the trouble shooter, and 
 went over to the foot of the pole. The man 
 walked down, striking his spurs deep into the 
 wood for safety. 
 
 "Hello!" said he. "School out?" 
 
 "For the day," said Jim. "Any important 
 work on the telephone line now?" 
 
222 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "Just trouble-shooting," was the answer. "I 
 have to spend three hours hunting these trou 
 bles, to one in fixing em up." 
 
 "Do they take much technical skill?" asked 
 Jim. 
 
 "Mostly shakin out crosses, and puttin in 
 new carbons in the arresters," replied the 
 trouble man. "Any one ought to do any of em 
 with five minutes instruction. But these 
 farmers they d rather have me drive ten 
 miles to take a hair-pin from across the bind 
 ing-posts than to do it themselves. That s the 
 way they are!" 
 
 "Will you be out here to-morrow?" queried 
 the teacher. 
 
 "Sure!" 
 
 "I d like to have you show my class in man 
 ual training something about the telephone," 
 said Jim. "The reason we can t fix our own 
 troubles, if they are as simple as you say, is 
 because we don t know how simple they are." 
 
 "I ll tell you what I ll do, Professor," said 
 the trouble man. "I ll bring a phone with me 
 and give em a lecture. I don t see how I can 
 employ the company s time any better than in 
 
A TROUBLE SHOOTER 223 
 
 beating a little telephone sense into the heads 
 of the community. Set the time, and I ll be 
 there with bells." 
 
 Bettina and her teacher walked on up the 
 shady lane, feeling that they had a secret. 
 They were very nearly on a parity as to the 
 innocence of soul with which they held this 
 secret, except that Bettina was much more 
 single-minded toward it than Jim. To her he 
 had been gradually attaining the status of a 
 hero whose clasp of her in that iron-armed way 
 was mysteriously blissful and beyond that 
 her mind had not gone. To Jim, Bettina rep 
 resented in a very sweet way the disturbing in 
 fluences which had recently risen to the thresh 
 old of consciousness in his being, and which 
 were concretely but not very hopefully em 
 bodied in Jennie Woodruff. 
 
 Thus interested in each other, they turned 
 the corner which took them out of sight of the 
 lineman, and stopped at the shady avenue lead 
 ing up to Nils Hansen s farmstead. Little 
 Hans Nilsen had disappeared by the simple 
 method of cutting across lots. Bettina s girl 
 ish instinct called for something more than the 
 
224 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 casual good-by which would have sufficed yes 
 terday. She lingered, standing close by Jim 
 Irwin. 
 
 "Won t you come in and let me clean the 
 mud off you," she asked, "and give you some 
 dry socks?" 
 
 "Oh, no!" replied Jim. "It s almost as far 
 to your house as it is home. Thank you, no." 
 
 "There s a splash of mud on your face," said 
 Bettina. "Let me" And with her little 
 handkerchief she began wiping off the mud. 
 Jim stooped to permit the attention, but not 
 much, for Bettina was of the mold of women 
 of whom warriors are born their faces ap 
 proached, and Jim recognized a crisis in the 
 fact that Bettina s mouth was presented for a 
 kiss. Jim met the occasion like the gentleman 
 he was. He did not leave her stung by rejec 
 tion ; neither did he obey the impulse to respond 
 to the invitation according to his man s in 
 stinct ; he took the rosy face between his palms 
 and kissed her forehead and left her in pos 
 session of her self-respect. After that Bettina 
 Hansen felt, somehow, that the world could 
 
A TROUBLE SHOOTER 225 
 
 not possibly contain another man like Jim Ir- 
 win a conviction which she still cherishes 
 when that respectful caress has been swept 
 into the cloudy distance of a woman s memo 
 ries. 
 
 Pete, Colonel Woodruff s hired man, was 
 watering the horses at the trough when the 
 trouble shooter reached the Woodruff tele 
 phone. County Superintendent Jennie had run 
 for her father s home in her little motor-car 
 in the face of the shower, and was now on the 
 bench where once she had said "Humph!" to 
 Jim Irwin and thereby started in motion the 
 factors in this story. 
 
 "Anything wrong with your phone?" asked 
 the trouble man of Pete. 
 
 "Nah," replied Pete. "It was on the blink 
 till you done something down the road." 
 
 "Crossed up," said the lineman. "These 
 trees along here are something fierce." 
 
 "I d cut em all if they was mine," said Pete, 
 "but the colonel set em out, along about sixty- 
 six, and I reckon they ll have to go on 
 a-growinV 
 
226 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "Who s your school-teacher?" asked the tele 
 phone man. 
 
 The county superintendent pricked up her 
 ears being quite properly interested in mat 
 ters educational. 
 
 "Feller name of Irwin," said Pete. 
 
 "Not much of a looker," said the trouble 
 shooter. 
 
 "Nater of the sile," said Pete. "He an I 
 both worked in it together till it roughened up 
 our complexions." 
 
 "Farmer, eh?" said the lineman interroga 
 tively. "Well, he s the first farmer I ever saw 
 in my life that recognized there s education in 
 the telephone business. I m goin to teach 
 a class in telephony at the schoolhouse to 
 morrow." 
 
 "Don t get swelled up," said Pete. "He has 
 everybody tell them young ones about every 
 thing blacksmith, cabinet-maker, pie-founder, 
 cookie-cooper, dressmaker even down to tele 
 phones. He ll have them scholars figurin on 
 telephones, and writin compositions on em, 
 and learnin lectricity from em an things like 
 that" 
 
A TROUBLE SHOOTER 227 
 
 "He must be some feller," said the lineman. 
 "And who s his star pupil?" 
 
 "Didn t know he had one," said Pete. 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Girl," said the trouble shooter. "Goes to 
 school from the farm where the Western Union 
 brace is used at the road." 
 
 "Nils Hansen s girl?" asked Pete. 
 
 "Toppy little filly," said the lineman, "with 
 silver mane looks like she d pull a good load 
 and step some." 
 
 "M h m," grunted Pete. "Bettina Hansen. 
 Looks well enough. What about her?" 
 
 Again the county superintendent, seated on 
 the bench, pricked up her ears that she might 
 learn, mayhap, something of educational in 
 terest. 
 
 "I never wanted to be a school-teacher as 
 bad," continued the shooter of trouble, "as I 
 did when this farmer got to the low place in 
 the road with the fair Bettina this afternoon 
 when they was comin home from school. The 
 water was all over the road " 
 
 "Then I win a smoke from the roadmaster," 
 said Pete. "I bet him it would overflow." 
 
228 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "Well, if I was in the professor s place, I d 
 be glad to pay the bet," said the worldly line 
 man. "And I ll say this for him, he rose equal 
 to the emergency and caved the emergency s 
 head in. He carried her across the pond, and 
 her a-clingin to his neck in a way to make 
 your mouth water. She wasn t a bit mad about 
 it, either." 
 
 "I d rather have a good cigar any ol time, 
 said Pete. "Nothin but a yaller-haired kid 
 an a Dane at that. I had a dame once up 
 at Spirit Lake " 
 
 "Well, I must be drivin on," said the line 
 man. "Got to get up a lecture for Professor 
 Irwin to-morrow and maybe I ll be able to 
 meet that yaller-haired kid. So long!" 
 
 The county superintendent recognized at 
 once the educational importance of the matter, 
 when one of her country teachers adopted the 
 policy of calling in everybody available who 
 could teach the pupils anything special, and 
 converting the school into a local Chautauqua 
 served by local lecturers. She made a run of ten 
 miles to hear the trouble shooter s lecture. She 
 saw the boys and some of the girls give an ex- 
 
A TROUBLE SHOOTER 229 
 
 planation of the telephone and the use of it. 
 She heard the teacher give as a language exer 
 cise the next day an essay on the ethics and 
 proprieties of eavesdropping on party lines; 
 and she saw the beginning of an arrangement 
 under which the boys of the Woodruff school 
 took the contract to look after easily-remedied 
 line troubles in the neighborhood on the basis 
 which paid for a telephone for the school, and 
 swelled slightly the fund which Jim was ac 
 cumulating for general purposes. Incidentally, 
 she saw how really educational was the work 
 of the day, and that to which it led. 
 
 She had no curiosity to which she would 
 have confessed, about the relations between 
 Jim Irwin and his "star pupil," that young 
 Brunhilde Bettina Hansen; but her official 
 duty required her to observe the attitude of 
 pupils to teachers Bettina among them. 
 Clearly, Jim was looked upon by the girls, 
 large and small, as a possession of theirs. They 
 competed for the task of keeping his desk in 
 order, and of dusting and tidying up the school 
 room. There was something of exaltation of 
 sentiment in this. Bettina s eyes followed him 
 
230 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 about the room in a devotional sort of way; 
 but so, too, did those of the ten-year-olds. He 
 was loved, that was clear, by Bettina, Calista 
 Simms and all the rest an excellent thing in 
 a school. 
 
 All the same, Jennie met Jim rather oftener 
 after the curious conversation between those 
 rather low fellows, Pete and the trouble 
 shooter. As autumn approached, and the time 
 came for Jim to begin to think of his trip to 
 Ames, Colonel Woodruffs hint that she should 
 assume charge of the problem of Jim s clothes 
 for the occasion, came more and more often to 
 her mind. Would Jim be able to buy suitable 
 clothes? Would he understand that he ought 
 not to appear in the costume which was toler 
 able in the Woodruff District only because the 
 people there were accustomed to seeing him 
 dressed like a tramp? Could she approach the 
 subject with any degree of safety? Really 
 these were delicate questions; and considering 
 the fact that Jennie had quite dismissed her 
 old sweetheart from the list of eligibles had 
 never actually admitted him to it, in fact 
 they assumed great importance to her mind. 
 
A TROUBLE SHOOTER 231 
 
 Once, only a little more than a year ago, she 
 had scoffed at Jim s mention of the fact that 
 he might think of marrying ; and now she could 
 not think of saying to him kindly, "Jim, you 
 really must have some better clothes to wear 
 when you go to Ames!" It would have been 
 far easier last summer. 
 
 Somehow, Jim had been acquiring dignity 
 and unapproachability. She must sidle up to 
 the subject. She did. She took him into her 
 runabout one day as he was striding toward 
 town in that plowed-ground manner of his, and 
 gave him a spin over to the fair grounds and 
 two or three times around the half-mile track. 
 
 "I m going to Ames to hear your speech," 
 said she. 
 
 "I m glad of that," said Jim. "More of the 
 farmers are going from this neighborhood than 
 ever before. I ll feel at home, if they all sit 
 together where I can talk at them." 
 
 "Who s going?" asked Jennie. 
 
 "The Bronsons, Con Bonner and Nils Han- 
 sen and Bettina," replied Jim. "That s all 
 from our district and Columbus Brown and 
 probably others from near-by localities." 
 
232 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "I shall have to have some clothes," said 
 Jennie. 
 
 Jim failed to respond to this, as clearly out 
 of his field. They were passing the county fair 
 buildings, and he began expatiating on the 
 kind of county fair he would have a great 
 county exposition with the schools as its cen 
 tral thought a clearing house for the rural 
 activities of all the country schools. 
 
 "And pa s going to have a suit before we 
 go, too," said Jennie. "Here are some sam 
 ples I got of Atkins, the tailor. Which would 
 be the most becoming do you think ?" 
 
 Jim looked the samples over carefully, but 
 had little to say as to their adaptation to 
 Colonel Woodruff s sartorial needs. Jennie 
 laid great stress on the excellent quality of one 
 or two samples, and carefully specified the 
 prices of them. Jim exhibited no more than 
 a languid and polite interest, and gave not the 
 slightest symptom of ever having considered 
 even remotely the contingency of having a 
 tailor-made suit. Jennie sidled closer to the 
 subject. 
 
 "I should think it would be awfully hard for 
 
A TROUBLE SHOOTER 233 
 
 you to get fitted in the stores," said she, "you 
 are so very tall." 
 
 "It would be," said Jim, "if I had ever con 
 sidered the matter of looks very much. I guess 
 I m not constructed on any plan the clothing 
 manufacturers have regarded as even remotely 
 possible. How about this county fair idea? 
 Couldn t we do this next fall? You organize 
 the teachers " 
 
 Jennie advanced the spark, cut out the muf^ 
 fler and drowned the rest of Jim s remarks in 
 wind and dust. 
 
 "I give it up, da<3," said she to her father 
 that evening. 
 
 "What?" queried the colonel. 
 
 "Jim Irwin s clothes," she replied. "I think 
 he ll go to Ames in a disgraceful plight, but I 
 can t get any closer to the subject than I have 
 done." 
 
 "Oh, then you haven t heard the news," said 
 the colonel. "Jim s going to have his first 
 made-to-measure suit for Ames. It s all fixed." 
 
 "Who s making it?" asked Jennie. 
 
 "Gustaf Paulsen, the Dane that s just opened 
 & shop in town." 
 
234 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "A Dane?" queried Jennie. "Isn t he re 
 lated to some of the neighbors?" 
 
 "A brother to Mrs. Hansen," answered the 
 colonel. 
 
 "Bettina s uncle!" 
 
 "Ratherly," said the colonel jocularly, "see 
 ing as how Bettina s Mrs. Hansen s daughter." 
 
 Clothes are rather important, but the dif 
 ference between a suit made by Atkins the 
 tailor, and one built by Gustaf Paulsen, the 
 new Danish craftsman, could not be supposed 
 to be crucially important, even when designed 
 for a very dear friend. And Jim was scarcely 
 that of course not! Why, then, did the 
 county superintendent hastily run to her room, 
 and cry? Why did she say to herself that the 
 Hansens were very good people, and well-to-do, 
 and it would be a fine thing for Jim and his 
 mother, and then cry some more? Colonel 
 failed to notice Jennie s unceremonious retire 
 ment from circulation that evening, and had he 
 known all about what took place, he would 
 have been as mystified as you or I. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 JIM GOES TO AMES 
 
 boat tipped over, and Jim Irwin was 
 left struggling in the water. It was in the 
 rapids just above the cataract and poor Jim 
 could not swim a stroke. Helpless, terrified, 
 gasping, he floated to destruction, and Jennie 
 Woodruff was not able to lift a hand to help 
 him. To see any human being swept to such 
 an end is dreadful, but for a county superin 
 tendent to witness the drowning of one of her 
 best though sometimes it must be confessed 
 most insubordinate teachers, under such cir 
 cumstances, is unspeakable; and when that 
 teacher is a young man who was once that 
 county superintendent s sweetheart, and falls 
 in, clothed in a new made-to-order suit in 
 which he looks almost handsome despite his 
 manifest discomfort in his new cravat and 
 starched collar, the experience is something al- 
 235 
 
236 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 most impossible to endure. That is why Jen 
 nie gripped her seat until she must have 
 scratched the varnish. That is why she felt 
 she must go to him and do something. She 
 could not endure it a moment longer, she felt; 
 and there he floated away, his poor pale face 
 dipping below the waves, his sad, long, homely 
 countenance sadder than ever, his lovely yes, 
 she must confess it now, his eyes were lovely! 
 his lovely blue eyes, so honest and true, wide 
 with terror; and she unable to give him so 
 much as a cry of encouragement! 
 
 And then Jim began to swim. He cast aside 
 the roll of manuscript which he had held in 
 his hand when the waters began to rise about 
 him, and struck out for the shore with strong 
 strokes wild and agitated at first, but grad 
 ually becoming controlled and coordinated, and 
 Jennie drew a long breath as he finally came 
 to shore, breasting the waves like Triton, and 
 master of the element in which he moved. 
 There was a burst of applause, and people went 
 forward to congratulate the greenhorn who 
 had really made good. 
 
 Jennie felt like throwing her arms about 
 
I m glad to meet you 
 
JIM GOES TO AMES 237 
 
 his neck and weeping out her joy at his es 
 cape, and his restoration to her. Her eyes told 
 him something of this; for there was a look 
 in them which reminded him of fifteen years 
 ago. Bettina Hansen was proud of him, and 
 Con Bonner shook his hand and said that he 
 agreed with him. Neither Bettina nor Con had 
 noticed the capsizing of the boat or saw the 
 form of Jim as it went drifting toward the 
 cataract. But Jim knew how near he had been 
 to disaster, and knew that Jennie knew. For 
 she had seen him turn pale when he came on 
 the platform to make his address at the farm 
 ers meeting at Ames, had seen him begin the 
 speech he had committed to memory, had ob 
 served how unable he was to remember it, had 
 noted his confusion as he tried to find his man 
 uscript, and then his place of beginning in it 
 and when his confusion had seemingly quite 
 overcome him, had seen him begin talking to 
 his audience just as he had talked to the po 
 litical meeting that time when he had so deeply 
 offended her, and had observed how he won 
 first their respect, then their attention, then 
 apparently their convictions. 
 
238 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 To Jennie s agitated mind Jim had barely 
 escaped being drowned in the ocean of his own 
 unreadiness and confusion under trying condi 
 tions. And she was right. Jim had never felt 
 more the upstart uneducated farm-hand than 
 when he was introduced to that audience by 
 Professor Withers, nor more completely dis 
 graced than when he concluded his remarks. 
 Even the applause was to him a kindly effort 
 on the part of the audience to comfort him in 
 his failure. His only solace was the look in 
 Jennie s eyes. 
 
 "Young man," said an old farmer who wore 
 thick glasses and looked like a Dutch burgo 
 master, "I want to have a little talk with you." 
 
 "This is Mr. Hof myer of Pottawatomie Coun 
 ty," said the dean of the college. 
 
 "I m glad to meet you," said Jim. "I can 
 talk to you now." 
 
 "No," said Jennie. "I know Mr. Hofmyer 
 will excuse you until after dinner. We have 
 a little party for Mr. Irwin, and we shall be 
 late if we don t hurry." 
 
 "Where can I see you after $iu>per?" asked 
 Mr. Hofmyer. 
 
JIM GOES TO AMES 239 
 
 Easy it was to satisfy Mr. Hof myer ; and Jim 
 was carried off to a dinner given by County 
 Superintendent Jennie to Jim, the dean, Profes 
 sor Withers, and one or two others and a won 
 derfully select and distinguished company it 
 seemed to Jim. Jennie seized a moment s op 
 portunity to say, "You did beautifully, Jim; 
 everybody says so." 
 
 "I failed!" said. Jim. "You know I failed. 
 I couldn t remember my speech. I can t stay 
 here feasting. I want to get out in the snow." 
 
 "You made the best address of the meeting; 
 and you did it because you forgot your speech," 
 insisted Jennie. 
 
 "Does anybody else think so?" 
 
 "Why, Jim! You must learn to believe in 
 what you have done. Even Con Bonner says 
 it was the best. He says he didn t think you 
 had it in ye!" 
 
 This advice from her to "believe in what you 
 have done," wasn t there something new in 
 Jennie s attitude here? Wasn t his belief in 
 what he was doing precisely the thing which 
 had made him such .a nuisance to the county 
 superintendent? However, Jim couldn t stop 
 
240 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 to answer the question which popped up in his 
 mind. 
 
 "What does Professor Withers say?" he 
 asked. 
 
 "He s delighted silly!" 
 
 "Silly !" How wonderful it was to be called 
 "silly"!!! that tone. 
 
 "I shouldn t have forgotten the speech if it 
 hadn t been for this darned boiled shirt and 
 collar, and for wearing a cravat," urged Jim 
 in extenuation. 
 
 "You ought to ve worn them around the 
 house for a week before coming," said Jennie. 
 "Why didn t you ask my advice?" 
 
 "I will, next time, Jennie," said Jim. "I 
 didn t suppose I needed a bitting-rig but I 
 guess I did!" 
 
 Jennie ran away then to ask Nils Hansen 
 and Bettina to join their dinner party. She 
 had a sudden access of friendliness for the 
 Hansens. Nils refused because he was going 
 out to see the college herds fed ; but at Jennie s 
 urgent request, reinforced by pats and hugs, 
 Bettina consented. Jennie was very happy, and 
 proved herself a beaming hostess. The dean 
 
JIM GOES TO AMES 241 
 
 devoted himself to Bettina and Jim found out 
 afterward that this inquiring gentleman was 
 getting at the mental processes of a specimen 
 pupil in one of the new kind of rural schools, 
 in which he was only half inclined to believe. 
 He thanked Jim for his speech, and said it was 
 "most suggestive and thought-provoking," and 
 as the party broke up slipped into Jim s hand 
 a check for the honorarium. It was not until 
 then that Jim felt quite sure that he was actu 
 ally to be paid for his speech; and he felt a 
 good deal like returning the check to the con 
 science fund of the State of Iowa, if it by any 
 chance possessed such a fund. But the breach 
 made in his financial entrenchments by the ex 
 penses of the trip and the respectable and well- 
 fitting suit of clothes overcame his feeling of 
 getting something for nothing. If he hadn t 
 given the state anything, he had at least ex 
 pended something a good deal in fact on the 
 state s account. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 JIM S WORLD WIDENS 
 
 TV/fR- HOFMYER was waiting to give Jim 
 the final convincing proof that he had 
 produced an effect with his speech. 
 
 "Do you teach the kind of school you lay 
 out in your talk?" he asked. 
 
 "I try to," said Jim, "and I believe I do." . 
 
 "Well," said Mr. Hofmyer, "that s the kind 
 of education I b lieve in. I kep school back 
 in Pennsylvany fifty years ago, and I made the 
 scholars measure things, and weigh things, and 
 apply their studies as fur as I could." 
 
 "All good teachers have always done that," 
 said Jim. "Froebel, Pestalozzi, Colonel Parker 
 they all had the idea which is at the bottom 
 of my work; learn to do by doing, and con 
 necting up the school with life." 
 
 "M h m," grunted Mr. Hofmyer, "I hain t 
 been able to see how Latin connects up with a 
 242 
 
JIM S WORLD WIDENS 243 
 
 high-school kid s life unless he can find a 
 Latin settlement som eres and git a job clerkin 
 in a store." 
 
 "But it used to relate to life," said Jim, "the 
 life of the people who made Greek and Latin a 
 part of everybody else s education as well as 
 their own. Latin and Greek were the only lan 
 guages in which anything worth much was 
 written, you know. But now" Jim spread 
 out his arms as if to take in the whole world 
 "science, the marvelous literature of our 
 tongue in the last three centuries! And to 
 make a child learn Latin with all that, a thou 
 sand times richer than all the literature of 
 Latin, lying unused before him!" 
 
 "Know any Latin?" asked Mr. Hofmyer. 
 
 Jim blushed, as one caught in condemning 
 what he knows nothing about. 
 
 "I I have studied the grammar, and read 
 Caesar" he faltered, "but that isn t much. I 
 had no teacher, and I had to work pretty hard, 
 and it didn t go very well." 
 
 "I ve had all the Latin they gave in the col 
 leges of my time," said Mr. Hofmyer, "if I do 
 talk dialect; and I ll agree with you so far as 
 
244 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 to say that it would have been a crime for 
 me to neglect the chemistry, bacteriology, phys 
 ics, engineering and other sciences that per 
 tain to farmin if there d been any such sci 
 ences when I was gettin my schoolinY 
 
 "And yet," said Jim, "some people want us 
 to guide ourselves by the courses of study made 
 before these sciences existed." 
 
 "I don t, by hokey !" said Mr. Hof myer. "I ll 
 be dag-goned if you ain t right. I wouldn t V 
 said so before I heard that speech but I say 
 so now." 
 
 Jim s face lighted up at this, the first con 
 vincing evidence that he had scored. 
 
 "I b lieve, too," went on Mr. Hofmyer, "that 
 your idee would please our folks. I ve been the 
 standpatter in our parts mostly on English 
 and say German. What d ye say to comin* 
 down and teachin our school? We ve got a 
 two-room affair, and I was made a committee 
 of one to find a teacher." 
 
 "I I don t see how " Jim stammered, all 
 taken aback by this new breeze of recognition. 
 
 "We can t pay much," said Mr. Hofmyer. 
 
JIM S WORLD WIDENS 245 
 
 "You have charge of the dis-cip-line in the 
 whole school, and teach in Number Two room. 
 Seventy-five dollars a month. Does it appeal 
 to ye?" 
 
 Appeal to him! Why, eighteen months ago 
 it would have been worth crawling across the 
 state after, and now to have it offered to him 
 it was stupendous. And yet, how about the 
 Simmses, Colonel Woodruff, the Hansens and 
 Newton Bronson, now just getting a firm start 
 on the upward path to usefulness and real hap 
 piness? How could he leave the little, crude, 
 puny structure on which he had been working 
 on which he had been merely practising 
 for a year, and remove to the new field? Jim 
 was in exactly the same situation in which 
 every able young minister of the gospel finds 
 himself sooner or later. The Lord was calling 
 to a broader field but how could he be sure 
 it was the Lord? 
 
 "I m afraid I can t," said Jim Irwin, 
 "but " 
 
 "If you re only fraid you can t," said Mr. 
 Hofmyer, "think it over. I ve got your post- 
 
246 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 office address on this program, and we ll write 
 you a formal offer. We may spring them fig 
 ures a little. Think it over." 
 
 "You mustn t think," said Jim, "that we ve 
 done all the things I mentioned in my talk, or 
 that I haven t made any mistakes or failures." 
 
 "Your county superintendent didn t mention 
 any failures," said Mr. Hofmyer. 
 
 "Did you talk with her about my work?" in 
 quired Jim, suddenly very curious. 
 
 "M h m." 
 
 "Then I don t see why you want me," Jim 
 went on. 
 
 "Why?" asked Mr. Hofmyer. 
 
 "I had not supposed," said Jim, "that she 
 had a very high opinion of my work." 
 
 "I didn t ask her about that," said Mr. Hof 
 myer, "though I guess she thinks well of it. I 
 asked her what you are tryin to do, and what 
 sort of a fellow you are. I was favorably im 
 pressed ; but she didn t mention any failures." 
 
 "We haven t succeeded in adopting a suc 
 cessful system of selling our cream," said Jim. 
 "I believe we can do it, but we haven t." 
 
 "Wai," said Mr. Hofmyer, "I d know as I d 
 
JIM S WORLD WIDENS 247 
 
 call that a failure. The fact that you re tryin 
 of it shows you ve got the right idees. We ll 
 write ye, and mebbe pay your way down to 
 look us over. We re a pretty good crowd, the 
 neighbors think," 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 THINK OF IT 
 
 A MES was an inspiration. Jim Irwin re- 
 ** ceived from the great agricultural college 
 more real education in this one trip than many 
 students get from a four years course in its 
 halls; for he had spent ten years in getting 
 ready for the experience. The great farm of 
 hundreds of acres, all under the management 
 of experts, the beautiful campus, the commodi 
 ous classrooms and laboratories, and espe 
 cially the barns, the greenhouses, gardens, 
 herds and flocks filled him with a sort of apos 
 tolic joy. 
 
 "Every school," said he to Professor With 
 ers, "ought to be doing a good deal of the work 
 you have to do here." 
 
 "1*11 admit," said the professor, "that much 
 of our work in agriculture is pretty element 
 ary." 
 
 248 
 
THINK OF IT 249 
 
 "It s intermediate school work," said Jim. 
 "It s a wrong to force boys and girls to leave 
 their homes and live in a college to get so much 
 of what they should have before they re ten 
 years old." 
 
 "There s something in what you say," said 
 the professor, "but some experiment station 
 men seem to think that agriculture in the com 
 mon schools will take from the young men and 
 women the felt need, and therefore the desire 
 to come to the college." 
 
 "If you can t give them anything better than 
 high-school work," said Jim, "that will be so; 
 but if the science and art of agriculture is what 
 I think it is, it would make them hungry for the 
 advanced work that really can t be done at 
 home. To make the children wait until they re 
 twenty is to deny them more than half what 
 the college ought to give them and make them 
 pay for what they don t get." 
 
 "I think you re right," said the professor. 
 
 "Give us the kind of schools I ask for," cried 
 Jim, "and I ll fill a college like this in every con 
 gressional district in Iowa, or I ll force you to 
 tear this down and build larger." 
 
250 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 The professor laughed at his enthusiasm. 
 
 More nearly happy, and rather shorter of 
 money than he had recently been, Jim jour 
 neyed home among the companions from his 
 own neighborhood, in a frenzy of plans for the 
 future. Mr. Hofmyer had dropped from his 
 mind, until Con Bonner, his old enemy, drew 
 him aside in the vestibule of the train and 
 spoke to him in the mysterious manner pe 
 culiar to politicians. 
 
 "What kind of a proposition did that man 
 Hofmeister make you?" he inquired. "He 
 asked me about you, and I told him you re a 
 cracker jack." 
 
 "Pm much obliged," replied Jim. 
 
 "No use in back-cappin a fellow that s 
 tryin to make somethin of himself," said Bon 
 ner. "That ain t good politics, nor good sense. 
 Anything to him?" 
 
 "He offered me a salary of seventy-five dol 
 lars a month to take charge of his school," said 
 Jim. 
 
 "Well," said Con, "we ll be sorry to lose yeh, 
 but you can t turn down anything like that." 
 
THINK OF IT 251 
 
 "I don t know," said Jim. "I haven t de 
 cided." 
 
 Bonner scrutinized his face sharply, as if to 
 find out what sort of game he was playing. 
 
 "Well," said he, at last, "I hope you can stay 
 with us, o course. I m licked, and I never 
 squeal. If the rist of the district can stand 
 your kind of thricks, I can. And say, Jim" 
 here he grew still more mysterious "if you do 
 stay, some of us would like to have you be 
 enough of a Dimmycrat to go into the next con- 
 vintion f r county superintendent." 
 
 "Why," replied Jim, "I never thought of 
 such a thing!" 
 
 "Well, think of it," said Con. "The county s 
 close, and wid a pop lar young educator an a 
 farmer, too, it might be done. Think of it." 
 
 It must be confessed that Jim was almost 
 dazed at the number of "propositions" of which 
 he was now required to "think" and that Bon- 
 ner s did not at first impress him as having 
 anything back of it but blarney. He was to 
 find out later, however, that the wily Con had 
 made up his mind that the ambition of Jim 
 
252 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 to serve the rural schools in a larger sphere 
 might be used for the purpose of bringing to 
 earth what he regarded as the soaring politi 
 cal ambitions of the Woodruff family. 
 
 To defeat the colonel in the defeat of his 
 daughter when running for her traditionally- 
 granted second term; to get Jim Irwin out of 
 the Woodruff District by kicking him up-stairs 
 into a county office; to split the forces which 
 had defeated Mr. Bonner in his own school dis 
 trict; and to do these things with the very in 
 strument used by the colonel on that sad but 
 glorious day of the last school election these, 
 to Mr. Bonner, would be diabolically fine things 
 to do things worthy of those Tammany politi 
 cians who from afar off had won his admira 
 tion. 
 
 Jim had scarcely taken his seat in the car, 
 facing Jennie Woodruff and Bettina Hansen in 
 the Pullman, when Columbus Brown, path- 
 master of the road district and only across the 
 way from residence in the school district, came 
 down the aisle and called Jim to the smoking- 
 room. 
 
 "Did an old fellow named Hoffman from Pot- 
 
THINK OF IT 253 
 
 tawatomie County ask you to leave us and take 
 his school?" he asked. 
 
 "Mr. Hofmyer," said Jim, " yes, he did." 
 
 "Well," said Columbus, "I don t want to ask 
 you to stand in your own light, but I hope you 
 won t let him toll you off there among stran 
 gers. We re proud of you, Jim, and we don t 
 want to lose you." 
 
 Proud of him! Sweet music to the under 
 ling s ears! Jim blushed and stammered. 
 
 "The fact is," said Columbus, "I know that 
 Woodruff District job hain t big enough for 
 you any more ; but we can make it bigger. If 
 you ll stay, I believe we can pull off a deal to 
 consolidate some of them districts, and make 
 you boss of the whole shooting match." 
 
 "I appreciate this, dumb," said Jim, "but I 
 don t believe you can do it." 
 
 "Well, think of it," said Columbus. "And 
 don t do anything till you talk with me and a 
 few of the rest of the boys." 
 
 "Think of it" again! 
 
 A fine home-coming it was for Jim, with the 
 colonel waiting at the station with a double 
 jBfeigh, and the chance to ride into the snowy 
 
254 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 country in the same seat with Jennie a chance 
 which was blighted by the colonel s placing of 
 Jennie, Bettina and Nils Hansen in the broad 
 rear seat, and Jim in front with himself. A 
 fine ride, just the same, over fine roads, and 
 past fine farmsteads snuggled into their rect 
 angular wrappages of trees set out in the old 
 pioneer days. The colonel would not allow him 
 to get out and walk when he could really have 
 reached home more quickly by doing so ; no, he 
 set the Hansens down at their door, took Jen 
 nie home, and then drove the lightened sleigh 
 merrily to the humble cabin of the rather ex 
 cited young schoolmaster. 
 
 "Did you make any deal with those people 
 down in the western part of the state?" asked 
 the colonel. "Jennie wrote me that you ve got 
 an offer." 
 
 "No," said Jim, and he told the colonel about 
 the proposal of Mr. Hofmyer. 
 
 "Well," said the colonel, "in my capacity of 
 wild-eyed reformer, I ve made up my mind that 
 the first four miles in tne trip is to make the 
 rural teacher s job a bigger job. It s got to 
 be a man s size, woman s size job, or we can t 
 
THINK OF IT 255 
 
 get real men and real women to stay in the 
 work." 
 
 "I think that s a statesmanlike formulation 
 of it," said Jim. 
 
 "Well," said the colonel, "don t turn down 
 the Pottawatomie County job until we have a 
 chance to see what we can do. I ll get some 
 kind of a meeting together, and what I want 
 you to do is to use this offer as a club over 
 this helpless school district. What we need is 
 to be held up. Do the Jesse James act, Jim!" 
 
 "I can t, Colonel!" 
 
 "Yes, you can, too. Will you try it?" 
 
 "I want to treat everybody fairly," said Jim, 
 "including Mr. Hofmyer. I don t know what 
 to do, hardly." 
 
 "Well, I ll get the meeting together," said 
 the colonel, "and in the meantime, think of 
 what I ve said." 
 
 Another thing to think of! Jim rushed into 
 the house and surprised his mother, who had 
 expected him to arrive after a slow walk from 
 town through the snow. Jim caught her in 
 his arms, from which she was released a mo 
 ment later, quite flustered and blushing. 
 
256 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "Why, James," said she, "you seem excited. 
 What s happened?" 
 
 "Nothing, mother," he replied, "except that 
 I believe there s just a possibility of my being a 
 success in the world!" 
 
 "My boy, my boy !" said she, laying her hand 
 on his arm, "if you were to die to-night, you d 
 die the greatest success any boy ever was if 
 your mother is any judge." 
 
 Jim kissed her, and went up to his attic to 
 change his clothes. Inside the waistcoat was 
 a worn envelope, which he carefully opened, 
 and took from it a letter much creased from 
 many foldings. It was the old letter from Jen 
 nie, written when the comical mistake had been 
 made of making him the teacher of the Wood 
 ruff school. It still contained her rather fussy 
 cautions about being "too original," and the 
 sage statement that "the wheel runs easiest in 
 the beaten track." It was written before the 
 vexation and trouble he had caused her ; but he 
 did not read the advice, nor think of the cool 
 ness which had come between them he read 
 only the sentence in which Jennie had told of 
 
THINK OF IT 257 
 
 her father s interest in Jim s success, ending 
 with the underscored words, "I m for you, too" 
 "I wonder," said Jim, as he went out to do 
 the evening s tasks, "I wonder if she is for 
 me!" 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 A SCHOOL DISTRICT HELD UP 
 
 V;OUNG McGEEHEE SIMMS was loitering 
 along the snowy way to the schoolhouse 
 bearing a brightly scoured tin pail two-thirds 
 full of water. He had been allowed to act as 
 Water Superintendent of the Woodruff School 
 as a reward of merit said merit being an es 
 say on which he received credit in both language 
 and geography on "Harvesting Wheat in the 
 Tennessee Mountains." This had been of vast 
 interest to the school in view of the fact that the 
 Simmses were the only pupils in the school 
 who had ever seen in use that supposedly- 
 obsolete harvesting implement, the cradle. 
 Buddy s essay had been passed over to the class 
 in United States history as the evidence of an 
 eye-witness concerning farming conditions in 
 cur grandfathers times. 
 258 
 
A SCHOOL DISTRICT HELD UP 259 
 
 The surnameless Pete, Colonel Woodruff s 
 hired man, halted Buddy at the door. 
 
 "Mr. Simms, I believe?" he said. 
 
 "I reckon you must be lookin for my 
 brother, Raymond, suh," said Buddy. 
 
 "I am a-lookin ," said Pete impressively, 
 "for Mr. McGeehee Simms." 
 
 "That s me," said Buddy; "but I hain t been 
 doin nothin wrong, suh!" 
 
 "I have a message here," said Pete, "for Pro 
 fessor James E. Irwin. He s what-ho within, 
 there, ain t he?" 
 
 "He s inside, I reckon," said Buddy. 
 
 "Then will you be so kind and condescendin f 
 as to stoop so low as to jump so high as to 
 give him this letter?" asked Pete. 
 
 Buddy took the letter and was considering 
 of his reply to this remarkable speech, when 
 Pete, gravely saluting, passed on, rather con 
 gratulating himself on having staged a very 
 good burlesque of the dignified manners of 
 those queer mountaineers, the Simmses. 
 
 "Please come to the meeting to-night," ran 
 the colonel s note to Jim ; "and when you come, 
 come prepared to hold the district up. If we 
 
260 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 can t meet the Pottawatomie County standard 
 of wages, we ought to lose you. Everybody in 
 the district will be there. Come late, so you 
 won t hear yourself talked about I should rec 
 ommend nine-thirty and war-paint." 
 
 It was a crisis, no doubt of that ; and the re 
 sponsibility of the situation rather sickened 
 Jim of the task of teaching. How could he 
 impose conditions on the whole school district? 
 How could the colonel expect such a thing of 
 him? And how could any one look for any 
 thing but scorn for the upstart field-hand from 
 these men who had for so many years made 
 him the butt of their good-natured but none 
 the less contemptuous ridicule? Who was he, 
 anyway, to lay down rules for these substan 
 tial and successful men he who had been for 
 all the years of his life at their command, sub 
 servient to their demands for labor their un 
 derling? Only one thing kept him from dodg 
 ing the whole issue and remaining at home 
 the colonel s matter-of-fact assumption that 
 Jim had become master of the situation. How 
 could he flee, when this old soldier was fighting 
 
A SCHOOL DISTRICT HELD UP 261 
 
 so valiantly for him in the trenches? So Jim 
 went to the meeting. 
 
 The season was nearing spring, and it was 
 a mild thawy night. The windows of the 
 schoolhouse were filled with heads, evidenc 
 ing the presence of a crowd of almost unprece 
 dented size, and the sashes had been thrown 
 up for ventilation and coolness. As Jim 
 climbed the back fence of the school-yard, he 
 heard a burst of applause, from which he 
 judged that some speaker had just finished his 
 remarks. There was silence when he came 
 alongside the window at the right of the chair 
 man s desk, a silence broken by the voice of 
 Old Man Simms, saying "Mistah Chairman!" 
 
 "The chair," said the voice of Ezra Bronson, 
 "recognizes Mr. Simms." 
 
 Jim halted in indecision. He was not ex 
 pected while the debate was in progress, and 
 therefore regarded himself at this time as 
 somewhat de trop. There is no rule of man 
 ners or morals, however, forbidding eavesdrop 
 ping during the proceedings of a public meet 
 ing and anyhow, he felt rather shiveringly 
 
262 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 curious about these deliberations. Therefore 
 he listened to the first and last public speech 
 of Old Man Simms. 
 
 "Ah ain t no speaker," said Old Man Simms, 
 "but Ah cain t set here and be quiet an go 
 home an* face my ole woman an* my boys an 
 gyuhls withouten sayin a word fo the best 
 friend any family evah had, Mr. Jim Irwin." 
 (Applause.) "Ah owe it to him that Ah ve 
 got the right to speak in this meetin at all. 
 Gentlemen, we-all owe everything to Mr. Jim 
 Irwin! Maybe Ah ll be thought forrard to 
 speak hyah, bein as Ah ain t no learnin an 
 some may think Ah don t pay no taxes; but it 
 will be overlooked, I reckon, seem as how we ve 
 took the Blanchard farm, a hundred an sixty 
 acres, for five yeahs, an move in a week from 
 Sat day. We pay taxes in our rent, Ah reckon, 
 an howsomever that may be, Ah ve come to 
 feel that you-all won t think hard of me if Ah 
 speak what we-uns feel so strong about Mr. 
 Jim Irwin?" 
 
 Old Man Simms finished this exordium with 
 the rising inflection, which denoted a direct 
 question as to his status in the meeting. "Go 
 
A SCHOOL DISTRICT HELD UP 263 
 
 on !" "You ve got as good a right as any one !" 
 "You re all right, old man!" Such exclama 
 tions as these came to Jim s ears with scarcely 
 less gratefulness than to those of Old Man 
 Simms who stammered and went on. 
 
 "Ah thank you-all kindly. Gentlemen an 
 ladies, when Mr. Jim Irwin found us, we was 
 scandalous pore, an we was wuss n pore we 
 was low-down." (Cries of "No No !") "Yes, 
 we was, becuz what s respectable in the moun 
 tings is one thing, whar all the folks is pore, 
 but when a man gets in a new place, he s got 
 to lift himse f up to what folks does where 
 he s come to, or he ll fall to the bottom of what 
 there is in that there community an maybe 
 he ll make a place fer himse f lower n anybody 
 else. In the mountings we was good people, 
 becuz we done the best we could an the best 
 any one done; but hyah, we was low-down 
 people becuz we hated the people that had mo 
 learnin , mo land, mo money, an mo friends 
 than what we had. My little gyuhls wasn t 
 respectable in their clothes. My childern was 
 igernant, an triflin , but I was the most triflin 
 of all. Ah ll leave it to Colonel Woodruff if I 
 
264 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 was good fer a plug of terbacker, or a bakin* of 
 flour at any sto in the county. Was I, Colo 
 nel? Wasn t I perfectly wuthless an triflin ?" 
 
 There was a ripple of laughter, in the midst 
 of which the colonel s voice was heard saying, 
 "I guess you were, Mr. Simms, I guess you 
 were, but " 
 
 "Thankee/ said Old Man Simms, as if the 
 colonel had given a really valuable testimonial 
 to his character. "I sho was! Thankee 
 kindly! An now, what am I good fer? Cain t 
 I get anything I want at the stores? Cain t I 
 git a little money at the bank, if I got to 
 have it?" 
 
 "You re just as good as any man in the dis 
 trict," said the colonel. "You don t ask for 
 more than you can pay, and you can get all 
 you ask." 
 
 "Thankee," said Mr. Simms gravely. "What 
 Ah tell you-all is right, ladies and gentlemen. 
 An what has made the change in we-uns, la 
 dies and gentlemen? It s the wuk of Mr. Jim 
 Irwin with my boy Raymond, the best boy any 
 man evah hed, and my gyuhl, Calista, an 
 Buddy, an* Jinnie, an with me an my ole 
 
A SCHOOL DISTRICT HELD UP 265 
 
 woman. He showed us how to get a toe-holt 
 into this new kentry. He teached the children 
 what orto be did by a rentin farmer in loway. 
 He done lifted us up, an made people of us. 
 He done showed us that you-all is good people, 
 an not what we thought you was. Outen what 
 he learned in school, my boy Raymond an me 
 made as good crops as we could last summer, 
 an done right much wuk outside. We got the 
 name of bein good farmers an good wukkers, 
 an when Mr. Blanchard moved to town, he said 
 he was glad to give us his fine farm for five 
 years. Now, see what Mr. Jim Irwin has done 
 for a pack o outlaws and outcasts. Instid o* 
 hi din out from the Hobdays that was lay- 
 wayin us in the mountings, we ll be livin in a 
 house with two chimleys an a swimmin tub 
 made outen crock ryware. We ll be in debt a 
 whole lot an we owe it to Mr. Jim Irwin that 
 we got the credit to git in debt with, an the 
 courage to go on and git out agin!" (Ap 
 plause.) "Ah could affo d to pay Mr. Jim Ir- 
 win s salary mysr f, if Ah could. An there s 
 enough men hyah to-night that say they ve been 
 money-he ped by his teachin the school to 
 
266 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 make up mo than his wages. Let s not let Mr. 
 Jim Irwin go, neighbors! Let s not let him 
 go!" 
 
 Jim s heart sank. Surely the case was des 
 perate which could call forth such a forlorn- 
 hope charge as that of Old Man Simms a per 
 formance on Mr. Simms part which warmed 
 Jim s soul. "There isn t a man in that meet 
 ing," said he to himself, as he walked to the 
 schoolhouse door, "possessed of the greatness 
 of spirit of Old Man Simms. If he s a fair 
 sample of the people of the mountains, they are 
 of the stuff of which great nations are made 
 if they only are given a chance!" 
 
 Colonel Woodruff was on his feet as Jim 
 made his way through the crowd about the 
 door. 
 
 "Mr. Irwin is here, ladies and gentlemen," 
 said he, "and I move that we hear from him as 
 to what we can do to meet the offer of our 
 friends in Pottawatomie County, who have 
 heard of his good work, and want him to work 
 for them; but before I yield the floor, I want 
 to say that this meeting has been worth while 
 just to have been the occasion of our all be- 
 
A SCHOOL DISTRICT HELD UP 267 
 
 coming better acquainted with our friend and 
 neighbor, Mr. Simms. Whatever may have 
 been the lack of understanding, on our part, 
 of his qualities, they were all cleared up by 
 that speech of his the best I have ever heard 
 in this neighborhood." 
 
 More applause, in the midst of which Old 
 Man Simms slunk away down in his seat to es 
 cape observation. Then the chairman said that 
 if there was no objection they would hear from 
 their well-known citizen, whose growing fame 
 was more remarkable for the fact that it had 
 been gained as a country schoolmaster he need 
 not add that he referred to Mr. James E. Ir- 
 win. More and louder applause. 
 
 "Friends and neighbors," said Jim, "you ask 
 me to say to you what I want you to do. I 
 want you to do what you want to do -nothing 
 more nor less. Last year I was glad to be tol 
 erated here; and the only change in the situa 
 tion lies in the fact that I have another place 
 offered me unless there has been a change in 
 your feelings toward me and my work. I hope 
 there has been; for I know my work is good 
 now, whereas I only believed it then." 
 
268 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "Sure it is!" shouted Con Bonner from a 
 front seat, thus signalizing that astute wire 
 puller s definite choice of a place in the band 
 wagon. "Tell us what you want, Jim !" 
 
 "What do I want?" asked Jim. "More than 
 anything else, I want such meetings as this 
 often and a place to hold them. If I stay in 
 the Woodruff District, I want this meeting to 
 effect a permanent organization to work with 
 me. I can t teach this district anything. No 
 body can teach any one anything. All any 
 teacher can do is to direct people s activities 
 in teaching themselves. You are gathered here 
 to decide what you ll do about the small matter 
 of keeping me at work as your hired man. You 
 can t make any legal decision here, but what 
 ever this meeting decides will be law, just the 
 same, because a majority of the people of the 
 district are here. Such a meeting as this can 
 decide almost anything. If I m to be your 
 hired man, I want a boss in the shape of a 
 civic organization which will take in every man 
 and woman in the district. Here s the place 
 and now s the time to make that organization 
 * an organization the object of which shall be 
 
A SCHOOL DISTRICT HELD UP 269 
 
 to put the whole district at school, and to boss 
 me in my work for the whole district." 
 
 "Dat sounds good," cried Haakon Peterson. 
 "Ve lldo dat!" 
 
 "Then I want you to work out a building 
 scheme for the school," Jim went on. "We 
 want a place where the girls can learn to cook, 
 keep house, take care of babies, sew and learn 
 to be wives and mothers. We want a place in 
 which Mrs. Hansen can come to show them how 
 to cure meat she s the best hand at that in 
 the county where Mrs. Bonner can teach them 
 to make bread and pastry she ought to be 
 given a doctor s degree for that where Mrs. 
 Woodruff can teach them the cooking of tur 
 keys, Mrs. Peterson the way to give the family 
 a balanced ration, and Mrs. Simms induct them 
 into the mysteries of weaving rag rugs and 
 making jellies and preserves you can all learn 
 these things from her. There s somebody right 
 in this neighborhood able to teach anything the 
 young people want to learn. 
 
 "And I want a physician here once in a 
 While to examine the children as to their health, 
 and a dentist to look after their teeth and teach 
 
270 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 them how to care for them. Also an oculist to 
 examine their eyes. And when Bettina Han- 
 sen comes home from the hospital a trained 
 nurse, I want her to have a job as visiting nurse 
 right here in the Woodruff District. 
 
 "I want a counting-room for the keeping of 
 the farm accounts and the record of our ob 
 servation in farming. I want cooperation in 
 letting us have these accounts. 
 
 "I want some manual training equipment for 
 wood- working and metal working, and a black 
 smith and wagon shop, in which the boys may 
 learn to shoe horses, repair tools, design build 
 ings, and practise the best agricultural engi 
 neering. So I want a blacksmith and handy 
 man with tools regularly on the job and he ll 
 more than pay his way. I want some land for 
 actual farming. I want to do work in poultry 
 according to the most modern breeding dis 
 coveries, and I want your cooperation in that, 
 and a poultry plant somewhere in the district. 
 
 "I want a laboratory in which we can work 
 on seeds, pests, soils, feeds and the like. For 
 the education of your children must come out 
 of these things. 
 
A SCHOOL DISTRICT HELD UP 271 
 
 "I want these things because they are neces 
 sary if we are to get the culture out of life we 
 should get and nobody gets culture out of any 
 sort of school they get it out of life, or they 
 don t get it at all. 
 
 "So I want you to build as freely for your 
 school as for your cattle and horses and hogs. 
 
 "The school I ask for will make each of you 
 more money than the taxes it will require 
 would make if invested in your farm equip 
 ment. If you are not convinced of this, don t 
 bother with me any longer. But the money 
 the school will make for you this new kind 
 of rural school will be as nothing to the so 
 cial life which will grow up a social life 
 which will make necessary an assembly-room, 
 which will be the social center, because it will 
 be the educational center, and the business cen 
 ter of the countryside. 
 
 "I want all these things, and more. But I 
 don t expect them all at once. I know that 
 this district is too small to do all of them, and 
 therefore, I am going to tell you of another 
 want which will tempt you to think that I am 
 crazy. I want a bigger district one that will 
 
272 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 give us the financial strength to carry out the 
 program I have sketched. This may be a pre 
 sumptuous thing for me to propose; but the 
 whole situation here to-night is presumptuous 
 on my part, I fear. If you think so, let me 
 go; but if you don t, please keep this meeting 
 together in a permanent organization of grown 
 up members of the Woodruff school, and by 
 pulling together, you can do these things all 
 of them and many more and you ll make the 
 Woodruff District a good place to live in and 
 die in and I shall be proud to live and die 
 in it at your service, as the neighborhood s hired 
 man!" 
 
 As Jim sat down there was a hush in the 
 crowded room, as if the people were dazed at 
 his assurance. There was no applause, until 
 Jennie Woodruff, now seen by Jim for the first 
 time over next the blackboard, clapped her 
 gloved hands together and started it; then it 
 swept out through the windows in a storm. The 
 dust rose from stamping feet until the kero 
 sene lamps were dimmed by it. And as the 
 noise subsided, Jim saw standing out in front 
 
A SCHOOL DISTRICT HELD UP 273 
 
 the stooped form of B. B. Hamm, one of the 
 most prosperous men in the district. 
 
 "Mr. Chairman Ezra Bronson," he roared, 
 "this feller s crazy, an* from the sound of 
 things, you re all as crazy as he is. If this fool 
 scheme of his goes through, my farm s for sale ! 
 I ll quit before I m sold out for taxes !" 
 
 "Just a minute, B. B. !" interposed Colonel 
 Woodruff. "This ain t as dangerous as you 
 think. * You don t want us .to do all this in fif 
 teen minutes, do you, Jim?" 
 
 "Oh, as to that," replied Jim, "I just wanted 
 you to have in your minds what I have in my 
 mind and unless we can agree to work toward 
 these things there s no use in my staying. But 
 time that s another matter. Believe with me, 
 and I ll w r ork with you." 
 
 "Get out of here!" said the colonel to Jim 
 in an undertone, "and leave the rest to your 
 friends." 
 
 Jim walked out of the room and took the way 
 toward his home. A horse tied to the hitch- 
 ing-pole had his blanket under foot, and Jim 
 replaced it on his back, patting him kindly and 
 
274 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 talking horse language to him. Then he went 
 up and down the line of teams, readjusting 
 blankets, tying loosened knots, and assuring 
 himself that his neighbors horses were se 
 curely tied and comfortable. He knew horses 
 better than he knew people, he thought. If he 
 could manage people as he could manage horses 
 . but that would be wrong. The horse did his 
 work as a servant, submissive to the wills of 
 others ; the community could never develop any 
 thing worth while in its common life, until it 
 worked the system out for itself. Horse man 
 agement was despotism ; man-government must 
 be like the government of a society of wild 
 horses, the result of the common work of the 
 members of the herd. 
 
 Two figures emerged from the schoolhouse 
 door, and as he turned toward his home after 
 his pastoral calls on the horses, they overtook 
 him. They were the figures of Newton Bron- 
 son and the county superintendent of schools. 
 
 "We were coming after you," said Jennie. 
 
 "Dad wants you back there again," said 
 Newton. 
 
 "What for?" inquired Jim. 
 
A SCHOOL DISTRICT HELD UP 275 
 
 "You silly boy," said Jennie, "you talked 
 about the good of the schools all of the time, 
 and never said a word about your own salary ! 
 What do you want? They want to know?" 
 
 "Oh!" exclaimed Jim in the manner of one 
 who suddenly remembers that he has forgotten 
 his umbrella or his pocket-knife. "I forgot all 
 about it. I haven t thought about that at all, 
 Jennie !" 
 
 "Jim," said she, "you need a guardian!" 
 
 "I know it, Jennie," said he, "and I know 
 who I want. I want " 
 
 "Please come back," said Jennie, "and tell 
 papa how much you re going to hold the dis 
 trict up for." 
 
 "You run back," said Jim to Newton, "and 
 tell your father that whatever is right in the 
 way of salary will be satisfactory to me. I 
 leave that to the people." 
 
 Newton darted off, leaving the schoolmaster 
 standing in the road with the county superin 
 tendent. 
 
 "I can t go back there!" said Jim. 
 
 "I m proud of you, Jim," said Jennie. "This 
 community has found its master. They can t 
 
276 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 do all you ask now, nor very soon; but finally 
 they ll do just as you want them to do. And, 
 Jim, I want to say that I ve been the biggest 
 little fool in the county!" 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 AN EMBASSY FROM DIXIE 
 
 SUPERINTENDENT JENNIE sat at her 
 desk in no very satisfactory frame of mind. 
 In the first place court was to convene on the 
 following Monday, and both grand jury and 
 petit juries would be in session, so that her 
 one-room office was not to be hers for a few 
 days. Her desk was even now ready to be 
 moved into the hall by the janitor. To Wilbur 
 Smythe, who did her the honor of calling oc 
 casionally as the exigencies of his law practise 
 took him past the office of the pretty country 
 girl on whose shapely shoulders rested the bur 
 den of the welfare of the schools, she remarked 
 that if they didn t soon build the new court 
 house so as to give her such accommodations 
 as her office really needed, "they might take 
 their old office so there!" 
 
 "Fair woman," said Wilbur, as he creased 
 277 
 
278 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 his Prince Albert in a parting bow, "should 
 adorn the home!" 
 
 "Bosh!" sneered Jennie, rather pleased, all 
 the same, "suppose she isn t fair, and hasn t 
 any home !" 
 
 This question of adorning a home was no 
 nearer settlement with Jennie than it had ever 
 been, though increasingly a matter of specu 
 lation. 
 
 There were two or three men rather good 
 catches, too who, if they were encouraged 
 but what was there to any of them ? Take Wil 
 bur Smythe, now; he would by sheer force of 
 persistent assurance and fair abilities eventu 
 ally get a good practise for a country lawyer 
 three or four thousand a year serve in the 
 legislature or the state senate, and finally be 
 come a bank director with a goodly standing 
 as a safe business man; but what was there 
 to him? This is what Jennie asked her paper 
 weight as she placed it on a pile of unfinished 
 examination papers. And the paper-weight 
 echoed, "Not a thing out of the ordinary !" And 
 then, said Jennie, "Well, you little simpleton, 
 who and what are you so out of the ordinary 
 
AN EMBASSY FROM DIXIE 279 
 
 that you should sneer at Wilbur Smythe and 
 Beckman Fifield and such men?" And echo 
 answered, "What?" and then the mail-carrier 
 came in. 
 
 Down near the bottom of the pile she found 
 this letter, signed by a southern state superin 
 tendent of schools, but dated at Kirksville, 
 Missouri : 
 
 "I am a member of a party of southern edu 
 cators state superintendents in the main," the 
 letter ran, "en tour of the country to see what 
 we can find of an instructive nature in rural 
 school work. I assure you that we are being 
 richly repaid for the time and expense. There 
 are things going on in the schools here in north 
 eastern Missouri, for instance, which merit 
 much study. We have met Professor Withers, 
 of Ames, who suggests that we visit your 
 schools, and especially the rural school taught 
 by a young man named Irwin, and I wonder if 
 you will be free on next Monday morning, if 
 we come to your office, to direct us to the 
 place ? If you could accompany us on the trip, 
 and perhaps show us some of your other ex 
 cellent schools, we should be honored and 
 pleased. The South is recreating her rural 
 Schools, and we are coming to believe that we 
 shall be better workmen if we create a new 
 kind, rather than an improvement of the old 
 kind. 11 
 
280 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 There was more of this courteous and defer 
 ential letter, all giving Jennie a sense of being 
 saluted by a fine gentleman in satin and ruffles, 
 and with a plume on his hat. And then came 
 the shock a party of state officials were com 
 ing into the county to study Jim Irwin s school ! 
 They would never come to study Wilbur 
 Smythe s law practise never in the world 
 or her work as county superintendent never! 
 - and Jim was getting seventy-five dollars a 
 month, and had a mother to support. More 
 over, he was getting more than he had asked 
 when the colonel had told him to "hold the dis 
 trict up!" But there could be no doubt that 
 there was something to Jim the man was out 
 of the ordinary. And wasn t that just what 
 she had been looking for in her mind? 
 
 Jennie wired to her southerner for the num 
 ber of his party, and secured automobiles for 
 the trip. She sent a note to Jim Irwin telling 
 of the prospective visitation. She would show 
 all concerned that she could do some things, 
 anyhow, and she w r ould send these people on 
 with a good impression of her county. 
 
 She was glad of the automobiles the next 
 
AN EMBASSY FROM DIXIE 281 
 
 Monday morning, when at nine-thirty the train 
 discharged upon her a dozen very alert, very 
 up-to-date, very inquisitive southerners, male 
 and female, most of whom seemed to have left 
 their "r s" in the gulf region. It was eleven 
 when the party parked their machines before 
 the schoolhouse door. 
 
 "There are visitors here before us," said 
 Jennie. 
 
 "Seems rather like an educational shrine," 
 said Doctor Brathwayt, of Mississippi. "How 
 does he accommodate so many visitors in that 
 small edifice?" 
 
 "I am not aware," said Jennie, "that he has 
 been in the habit of receiving so very many 
 from outside the district. Well, shall we 
 go in?" 
 
 Once inside, Jennie felt a queer return of 
 her old aversion to Jim s methods the aver 
 sion which had caused her to criticize him so 
 sharply on the occasion of her first visit. The 
 reason for the return of the feeling lay in the 
 fact that the work going on was of the same 
 sort, but of a more intense character. It was 
 so utterly unlike a school as Jennie understood 
 
282 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 the word, that she glanced back at the group 
 of educators with a little blush. The school 
 was in a sort of uproar. Not that uproar of 
 boredom and mischief of which most of us have 
 familiar memories, but a sort of eager uproar, 
 in which every child was intensely interested 
 in the same thing ; and did little rustling things 
 because of this interest; something like the 
 hum at a football game or a dog-fight. 
 
 On one side of the desk stood Jim Irwin, and 
 facing him was a smooth stranger of the old- 
 fashioned lightning-rod-agent type the shal 
 lower and laxer sort of salesman of the kind 
 whose sole business is to get signatures on the 
 dotted line, and let some one else do the rest. 
 In short, he was a "closer." 
 
 Standing back of him in evident distress was 
 Mr. Cornelius Bonner, and grouped about were 
 Columbus Brown, B. B. Hamm, Ezra Bronson, 
 A. B. Talcott and two or three others from 
 outside the Woodruff District. With envelopes 
 in their hands and the light of battle in their 
 eyes stood Newton Bronson, Raymond Simms, 
 Bettina Hansen, Mary Smith and Angie Talcott, 
 the boys filled with delight, the girls rather 
 
AN EMBASSY FROM DIXIE 283 
 
 4 
 
 frightened at being engaged in something like 
 a debate with the salesman. 
 
 As the latest-coming visitors moved forward, 
 they heard the schoolmaster finishing his pas 
 sage at arms with the salesman. 
 
 "You should not feel exasperated at us, Mr. 
 Carmiehael," said he in tones of the most com 
 plete respect, "for what our figures show. You 
 are unfortunate in the business proposition you 
 offer this community. That is all. Even these 
 children have the facts to prove that the 
 creamery outfit you offer is not worth within 
 two thousand dollars of what you ask for it, 
 and that it is very doubtful if it is the sort 
 of outfit we should need." 
 
 "I ll bet you a thousand dollars " began 
 Carmiehael hotly, when Jim waved him down. 
 
 "Not with me," said Jim. "Your friend, Mr. 
 Bonner, there, knows what chance there is for 
 you to bet even a thousand cents with me. Be-, 
 sides, we know our facts, in this school. We ve 
 been working on them for a long time." 
 
 "Bet your life we have !" interpolated New 
 ton Bronson. 
 
 "Before we finish," said Jim, "I want to 
 
284 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 thank you gentlemen for bringing in Mr. Car- 
 michael. We have been reading up on the lit 
 erature of the creamery promoter, and it is a 
 very fine thing to have one in the flesh with 
 whom to to demonstrate, if Mr. Carmichael 
 will allow me to say so." 
 
 Carmichael looked at Bonner, made an ex 
 pressive motion with his head toward the door, 
 and turned as if to leave. 
 
 "Well," said he, "I can do plenty of busi 
 ness with men. If you men want to make the 
 deal I offer you, and I can show you from the 
 statistics I ve got at the hotel that it s a spe 
 cial deal just to get started in this part of the 
 state, and carries a thousand dollars of cut in 
 price to you. Let s leave these children and 
 this he school-ma am and get something done." 
 
 "I can t allow you to depart," said Jim more 
 gently than before, "without thanking you for 
 the very excellent talk you gave us on the ad 
 vantage of the cooperative creamery over the 
 centralizer. We in this school believe in the 
 cooperative creamery, and if we can get rid 
 of you, Mr. Carmichael, without buying your 
 
AN EMBASSY FROM DIXIE 285 
 
 equipment, I think your work here may be pro 
 ductive of good." 
 
 "He s off three or four points on the average 
 overrun in the Wisconsin co-ops," said Newton. 
 
 "And we thought," said Mary Smith, "that 
 we d need more cows than he said to keep up 
 a creamery of our own." 
 
 "Oh," replied Jim, "but we mustn t expect 
 Mr. Carmichael to know the subject as well as 
 we do, children. He makes a practise of talk 
 ing mostly to people who know nothing about 
 it and he talks very well. All in favor of 
 thanking Mr. Carmichael please say Aye/ 
 
 There was a rousing chorus of "Aye!" in 
 which Mr. Carmichael, followed closely by Mr. 
 Bonner, made his exit. B. B. Hamm went for 
 ward and shook Jim s hand slowly and con 
 templatively, as if trying to remember just 
 what he should say. 
 
 "James E. Irwin," said he, "you ve saved us 
 from being skinned by the smoothest grafter 
 that I ever seen." 
 
 "Not I," said Jim; "the kind of school I 
 stand for, Mr. Hamm, will save you more than 
 
286 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 that and give you the broadest culture any 
 school ever gave. A culture based on life. 
 We ve been studying life, in this school the 
 life we all live here in this district." 
 
 "He had a smooth partner, too," said Co 
 lumbus Brown. Jim looked at Bonner s little 
 boy in one of the front seats and shook his 
 head at Columbus warningly. 
 
 "If I hadn t herded em in here to ask you 
 a few questions about cooperative creameries," 
 said Mr. Talcott, "we d have been stuck they 
 pretty near had our names. And then the 
 whole neighborhood would have been sucked in 
 for about fifty dollars a name." 
 
 "I d have gone in for two hundred," said 
 B. B. Hamm. 
 
 "May I call a little meeting here for a min 
 ute, Jim?" asked Ezra Bronson. "Why, where s 
 he gone?" 
 
 "They s some other visitors come in," said a 
 little girl, pulling her apron in embarrassment 
 at the teacher s absence. 
 
 Jim had, after what seemed to Jennie an 
 interminable while, seen the county superin 
 tendent and her distinguished party, and wai 
 
AN EMBASSY FROM DIXIE 287 
 
 now engaged in welcoming them and endeav 
 oring to find them seats, quite an impossible 
 thing at that particular moment, by the way. 
 
 "Don t mind us, Mr. Irwin," said Doctor 
 Brathwayt. "This is the best thing we ve seen 
 on our journeyings. Please go on with the 
 proceedings. That gentleman seems to have in 
 mind the perfectin of some so t of organiza 
 tion. I m intensely interested." 
 
 "I d like to call a little meetin here," said 
 Ezra to the teacher. "Seein we ve busted up 
 your program so far, may we take a little while 
 longer?" 
 
 "Certainly," said Jim. "The school will 
 please come to order." 
 
 The pupils took their seats, straightened 
 their books and papers, and were at attention. 
 Doctor Brathwayt nodded approvingly as if at 
 the answer to some question in his mind. 
 
 "Children," said Mr. Irwin, "you may or may 
 not be interested in what these gentlemen are 
 about to do but I hope you are. Those who 
 wish may be members of Mr. Bronson s meet 
 ing. Those who do not prefer to do so may 
 take up their regular work." 
 
288 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Mr. Bronson to the re 
 mains of Mr. CarmichaePs creamery party, 
 "we ve been cutting bait in this neighborhood 
 about long enough. I m in favor of fishing, 
 now. It would have been the biggest disgrace 
 ever put on this district to have been swindled 
 by that sharper, when the man that could have 
 set us right on the subject was right here work 
 ing for us, and we never let him have a chance. 
 And yet that s what we pretty near did. How 
 many here favor building a cooperative cream 
 ery if we can get the farmers in with cows 
 enough to make it profitable, and the equip 
 ment at the right price?" 
 
 Each man held up a hand. 
 
 "Here s one of our best farmers not voting," 
 said Mr. Bronson, indicating Raymond Simms. 
 "How about you, Raymond?" 
 
 "Ah reckon paw ll come in," said Raymond 
 blushingly. 
 
 "He will if you say so," said Mr. Bronson. 
 
 Raymond s hand went up amid a ripple of 
 applause from the pupils, who seemed glad to 
 have a voter in their ranks. 
 
 "Unanimous!" said Mr. Bronson. "It is a 
 
AN EMBASSY FROM DIXIE 289 
 
 vote ! Now I d like to hear a motion to perfect 
 a permanent organization to build a cream 
 ery." 
 
 "I think we ought to have a secretary first," 
 said Mr. Talcott, "and I nominate Mr. James 
 E. Irwin for the post." 
 
 "Quite correct," said Mr. Bronson, "thankee, 
 A. B. I was about to forgit the secretary. Any 
 other nominations? No Abjections, Mr. Irwin 
 will be declared unanimously elected. Mr. Ir- 
 win s elected. Mr. Irwin, will you please as 
 sume the duties?" 
 
 Jim sat down at the desk and began making 
 notes. 
 
 "I think we ought to call this the Anti-Car- 
 michael Protective Association," said Columbus 
 Brown, but Mr. Bronson interrupted him, 
 rather frowningly. 
 
 "All in good time, dumb," said he, "but this 
 is serious work." So admonished, the meeting 
 appointed committees, fixed upon a time for a 
 future meeting, threw a collection of half-dol 
 lars on the desk to start a petty cash fund, 
 made the usual joke about putting the secre 
 tary under bond, adjourned and dispersed. 
 
290 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "It s a go this time !" said Newton to Jim. 
 
 "I think so," said Jim, "with those men in 
 terested. Well, our study of creameries has 
 given a great deal of language work, a good 
 deal of arithmetic, some geography, and finally 
 saved the people from a swindle. Rather good 
 work, Raymond!" 
 
 "My mother has a delayed luncheon ready 
 for the party," said Jennie to Jim. "Please 
 come with us please!" 
 
 But Jim demurred. Getting off at this time 
 of day was really out of the question if he was 
 to be ready to show the real work of the school 
 in the afternoon session. 
 
 "This has been rather extraordinary," said 
 Jim, "but I am very glad you were here. It 
 shows the utility of the right sort of work in 
 letter-writing, language, geography and arith 
 metic in learning things about farming." 
 
 "It certainly does," said Doctor Brathwayt. 
 "I wouldn t have missed it under any con 
 sideration; but I m certainly sorry for that 
 creamery shark and his accomplice to be 
 routed by the Fifth Reader grade in farming !" 
 
 The luncheon was rather a wonderful affair 
 
AN EMBASSY FROM DIXIE 291 
 
 and its success was unqualified after every 
 body discovered that the majority of those in 
 attendance felt much more at home when call 
 ing it dinner. Colonel Woodruff had fought 
 against the regiment of the father of Profes 
 sor Gray, of Georgia, in at least one engage 
 ment, and tentative plans were laid for the 
 meeting of the two old veterans "some winter 
 in the future." 
 
 "What d ye think of our school?" asked the 
 colonel. 
 
 "Well," said Professor Gray, "it s not fair to 
 judge, Colonel, on what must have been rather 
 an extraordinary moment in the school s his 
 tory. I take it that you don t put on a rep 
 resentation of The Knave Unmasked" every 
 morning." 
 
 "It was more like a caucus than I ve ever 
 seen it, daddy," said Jennie, "and less like a 
 school." 
 
 "Don t you think," said Doctor Brathwayt, 
 "that it was less like a school because it was 
 more like life? It was life. If I am not mis 
 taken, history for this community was making 
 in that schoolroom as we entered." 
 
292 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "You re perfectly right, Doctor," said the 
 colonel. "Columbus Brown and about a dozen 
 others living outside the district are calling 
 Wilbur Smythe in counsel to perfect plans for 
 an election to consolidate a few of these little 
 independent districts, for the express purpose 
 of giving Jim Irwin a plant that he can do 
 something with. Jim s got too big for the dis 
 trict, and so we re going to enlarge the district, 
 and the schoolhouse, and tne teaching force, 
 and the means of educational grace generally. 
 That s as sure as can be after what took place 
 this morning." 
 
 "He s rather a wonderful person, to be found 
 in such a position," said Professor Gray, "or 
 would be in any region I have visited." 
 
 "He s a native product," said the colonel, 
 "but a wonder all the same. He s a Brown 
 Mouse, you know." 
 
 "A a ?" Doctor Brathwayt was plainly 
 astonished. And so the colonel was allowed to 
 tell again the story of the Darbishire brown 
 mice, and why he called Jim Irwin one. Doc 
 tor Brathwayt said it was an interesting Men- 
 delian explanation of the appearance of such 
 
AN EMBASSY FROM DIXIE 293 
 
 a character as Jim. "And if you are right, 
 Colonel, you ll lose him one of these days. You 
 can t expect to retain a Caesar, a Napoleon, or 
 a Lincoln in a rural school, can you?" 
 
 "I don t know about that," said the colonel. 
 "The great opportunity for such a Brown 
 Mouse may be in this very school, right now. 
 He d have as big an army right here as Socra 
 tes ever had. The Brown Mouse is the only 
 judge of his own proper place." 
 
 "I think," said Mrs. Brathwayt, as they mo 
 tored back to the school, "that your country 
 schoolmaster is rather terrible. The way he 
 crushed that Mr. Carmichael was positively 
 merciless. Did he know how cruel he was?" 
 
 "I think not," said Jennie. "It was the truth 
 that crushed Mr. Carmichael." 
 
 "But that vote of thanks," said Mrs. Brath 
 wayt. "Surely that was the bitterest irony." 
 
 "I wonder if it was," said Jennie. "No, I 
 am sure it wasn t. He wanted to leave the chil 
 dren thinking as well as possible of their vic 
 tim, and especially of Mr. Bonner; and there 
 was really something in Mr. Carmichael s talk 
 which could be praised. I have known Jim Ir- 
 
294 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 win since we were both children, and I feel 
 sure that if he had had any idea that his treat 
 ment of this man had been unnecessarily cruel, 
 it would have given him a lot of pain." 
 
 "My dear," said Mrs. Brathwayt, "I think 
 you are to be congratulated for having known 
 for a long time a genius." 
 
 "Thank you," said Jennie. And Mrs. Brath 
 wayt gave her a glance which brought to her 
 cheek another blush; but of a different sort 
 from the one provoked by the uproar in the 
 Woodruff school. 
 
 There could be no doubt now that Jim was 
 thoroughly wonderful nor that she, the county 
 superintendent, was quite as thoroughly a little 
 fool. She to be put in authority over him! 
 It was too absurd for laughter. Fortunately, 
 she hadn t hindered him much but who was 
 to be thanked for that? Was it owing to any 
 wisdom of hers? Well, she had decided in his 
 favor, in those first proceedings to revoke his 
 certificate. Perhaps that was as good a thing 
 to remember as was to be found in the record. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 AND SO THEY LIVED 
 
 AND so it turned out quite as if it were in 
 the old ballad, that "all in the merry 
 month of May," and also "all in the merry green 
 wood," there were great doings about the bold 
 little promontory where once stood the cabin 
 on the old wood-lot where the Simms family 
 had dwelt. The brook ran about the promon 
 tory, and laid at its feet on three sides a car 
 pet of blue-grass, amid clumps of trees and 
 wild bushes. Not far afield on either hand 
 came the black corn-land, but up and down the 
 bluffy sides of the brook for some distance on 
 both sides of the King-dragged highway, ran 
 the old wood-lot, now regaining much of the 
 unkempt appearance which characterized it 
 when Jira Irwin had drawn upon himself the 
 gentle rebuke of Old Man Simms for not giv- 
 295 
 
296 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 ing a whoop from the big road before coming 
 into the yard. 
 
 But Old Man Simms was gone, with all the 
 Simmses, now thoroughly established on the 
 Blanchard farm, and quite happy in their new 
 success. The cabin was gone, and in its place 
 stood a pretty little bungalow, about which 
 blossomed the lilacs and peonies and roses and 
 other old-fashioned flowers, planted there long 
 ago by some pioneer woman, nourished back to 
 thriftiness by old Mrs. Simms, and carefully 
 preserved during the struggles with the build 
 ers of the bungalow by Mrs. Irwin. For this 
 was Mrs. Irwin s new home. It was, in point 
 of fact, the teacher s house or schoolmanse for 
 the new consolidated Woodruff District, and 
 the old Simms wood-lot was the glebe-land of 
 the schoolmanse. 
 
 Jim turned over and over in his mind these 
 new applications of old, historic, significant 
 words, dear to every reader of history "glebe- 
 land," "schoolmanse" and it seemed to him 
 that they signified the return of many old 
 things lost in Merrie England, lost in New Eng 
 land, lost all over the English-speaking world, 
 
AND SO THEY LIVED 297 
 
 when the old publicly-paid clergyman ceased 
 to be so far the servant of all the people that 
 they refused to be taxed for his support. Was 
 not the new kind of rural teacher to be a pub 
 licly-paid leader of thought, of culture, of prog 
 ress, and was he not to have his manse, his 
 glebe-land, and his "living"? And all because, 
 like the old clergymen, he was doing a work 
 in which everybody was interested and for 
 which they were willing to be taxed. Perhaps 
 it was not so high a status as the old ; but who 
 was to say that? Certainly not Jim Irwin, the 
 possessor of the new kind of "living," with its 
 "glebe-land" and its "schoolmanse." He would 
 have rated the new quite as high as the old. 
 
 From the brow of the promontory, a light 
 concrete bridge took the pretty little gorge in 
 the leap of a single arch, and landed the eye 
 at the bottom of the front yard of the school- 
 house. Thus the new institution of life was 
 in full view of the schoolmanse veranda, and 
 yet shut off from it by the dry moat of the 
 brook and its tiny meadow of blue-grass. 
 
 Across the road was the creamery, with its 
 businesslike unloading platform, and its addi- 
 
298 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 tion in process of construction for the recep 
 tion of the machinery for the cooperative 
 laundry. Not far from the creamery, and also 
 across the road, stood the blacksmith and 
 wheelwright shop. Still farther down the 
 stream were the barn, poultry house, pens, 
 hutches and yards of the little farm small, 
 economically made, and unpretentious, as were 
 all the buildings save the schoolhouse itself, 
 which was builded for the future. 
 
 And even the schoolhouse, when one thinks 
 of the uses to which it was to be put kitchen, 
 nursery, kindergarten, banquet-hall, theater, 
 moving-picture hall, classrooms, manual train 
 ing rooms, laboratory and counting-room and 
 what-not, was wonderfully small Colonel 
 Woodruff said far too small though it was 
 necessarily so large as to be rather astonishing 
 to the unexpectant passer-by. 
 
 The unexpectant passer-by this May day, 
 however, would have been especially struck by 
 the number of motor-cars, buggies and surreys 
 parked in the yard back of the creamery, along 
 the roadside, and by the driveway running to 
 the schoolhouse. People in numbers had ar- 
 
AND SO THEY LIVED 299 
 
 rived by five o clock in the afternoon, and were 
 still coming. They strolled about the place, 
 examining the buildings and grounds, and talk 
 ing with the blacksmith and the butter-maker v 
 gradually drawing into the schoolhouse like a 
 swarm of bees into a hive selected by the 
 queen. None of them, however, went across 
 the concrete bridge to the schoolmanse, save 
 Mrs. Simms, who crossed, consulted with Mrs. 
 Irwin about the shrubbery and flowers, and 
 went back to Buddie and Jinnie, who were good 
 children but natchally couldn t be trusted with 
 so many other young ones withouten some 
 watchin . 
 
 "They re coming! They re coming!" 
 This was the cry borne to the people in and 
 about the schoolhouse by that Hans Hansen 
 who would be called Hans Nilsen. Hans had 
 been to the top of the little hill and had a look 
 toward town. Like a crew manning the rig 
 ging, or a crowd having its picture taken, the 
 assemblage crystallized into forms determined 
 by the chances of getting a glimpse of the bun 
 galow across the ravine on posts, fences, 
 trees and hillocks. Still nobody went across 
 
300 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 the bridge, and when McGeehee Simms and 
 Johnny Bonner strayed to the bridge-head, 
 Mrs. Simms called them back by a minatory, 
 "Buddy, what did I tell you? You come hyah !" 
 A motor-car came over the hillock, ran down 
 the road to the driveway to the schoolmanse 
 and drew up at the door. Out of it stepped 
 Mrs. Woodruff and the colonel, their daughter, 
 the county superintendent of schools, and Mr. 
 Jim Irwin. Jennie was dressed in a very well- 
 tailored traveling costume, and Jim in a mod 
 erately well-tailored business suit. Mrs. Irwin 
 kissed her son and Jennie, and led the way into 
 the house. Jennie and Jim followed and 
 when they went in, the crowd over across the 
 ravine burst forth into a tremendous cheer, 
 followed by a three-times-three and a tiger. 
 The unexpectant passer-by would have been 
 rather surprised at this, but we who are ac 
 quainted with the parties must all begin to 
 have our suspicions. The fact that when they 
 reached the threshold Jim picked Jennie up in 
 his arms and carried her in, will enable any 
 good detective to put one and one together and 
 
AND SO THEY LIVED 301 
 
 make a pair which comes pretty near telling 
 the whole story. 
 
 By this time it was nearly seven, and Calista 
 Simms came across the charmed bridge as a 
 despatch-bearer, saying that if Mr. Jim and 
 Miss Jennie didn t mind, dinner would be 
 suhved right soon. It was cooked about right, 
 and the folks was gettin right hungry an 
 such a crowd! There were fifteen in the 
 babies room, and for a while they thought the 
 youngest Hamm young one had swallowed a 
 marble. She would tell em they would be right 
 over; good-by. 
 
 There was another cheer as the three elderly 
 and the two young people emerged from the 
 schoolmanse and took their way over the 
 bridge to the school side of the velvet-bottomed 
 moat; but it did not terminate in three-times- 
 three and a tiger. It was, in fact shut off like 
 the vibration of a bell dipped in water by the 
 sudden rush of the shouters into the big assem 
 bly-room, now filled with tables for the ban 
 quet and here the domestic economy classes, 
 with their mothers, sisters, female cousins and 
 
302 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 aunts, met them, as waiters, hat-snatchers, 
 hostesses, floor-managers and cooks, scoring 
 the greatest triumph of history in the Wood 
 ruff District. For everything went off like 
 clockwork, especially the victuals and such 
 victuals ! 
 
 There was quantity in meats, breads, vege 
 tables and there was also savor. There was 
 plenty, and there was style. Ask Mrs. Haakon 
 Peterson, who yearned for culture, and had 
 been afraid her children wouldn t get it if Yim 
 Irwin taught them nothing but farming. She 
 will tell you that the dinner which so many 
 thought of all the time as supper was yust 
 as w r ell served as it if had been in the Cham 
 berlain Hotel in Des Moines, where she had 
 stayed when she went with Haakon to the 
 state convention. 
 
 Why shouldn t it have been even better 
 served? It was planned, cooked, served and 
 eaten by people of intelligence and brains, in 
 their own house, as a community affair, and 
 in a community where, if any one should ask 
 you, you are authorized to state that there s as 
 much wealth to the acre as in any strictly farm- 
 
AND SO THEY LIVED 303 
 
 ing spot between the two oceans, and where 
 you are perfectly safe financially in drop 
 ping from a balloon in the dark of the moon, 
 and paying a hundred and fifty dollars an acre 
 for any farm you happen to land on. Why 
 shouldn t things have been well done, when 
 every one worked, not for money, but for the 
 love of the doing, and the love of learning to 
 do in the best way? 
 
 Some of these things came out in the 
 speeches following the repast and some other 
 things, too. It was probably not quite fair for 
 B. B. Hamm to incorporate in his wishes for 
 the welfare and prosperity and so forth of Jim 
 and Jennie that stale one about the troubles 
 of life, but he wanted to see Jennie blush 
 which as a matter of fact he did; but she 
 failed to grow quite so fiery red as did Jim. 
 But B. B. was a good fellow, and a Trojan in 
 his work for the cause, and the schoolmaster 
 and superintendent of schools forgave him. A 
 remark may be a little broad, and still clean, 
 and B. B. made a clean speech mainly devoted 
 to the increased value of that farm he at one 
 
304 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 memorable time was going to sell before Jim s 
 fool notions could be carried out. 
 
 Colonel Woodruff made most of the above 
 points which I have filched from him. He had 
 begun as a reformer late in life, he said, but 
 he would leave it to them if he hadn t worked 
 at the trade steadily after enlistment. He had 
 become a follower of Jim Irwin, because Jim s 
 reform was like dragging the road in front of 
 your own farm it was reform right at home, 
 and not at the county seat, or Des Moines, or 
 Washington. He had followed Jim Irwin as he 
 had followed Lincoln, and Grant, and Elaine, 
 and McKinley because Jim Irwin stood for 
 more upward growth for the average Ameri 
 can citizen than the colonel could see any pros 
 pect of getting from any other choice. And 
 he was proud to live in a country like this, 
 saved and promoted by the great men he had 
 followed, and in a neighborhood served and 
 promoted, if not quite saved, by Jim Irwin. 
 And he was not so sure about its not being 
 saved. Every man and nation had to be saved 
 anew every so often, and the colonel believed 
 that Jim Irwin s new kind of rural school is 
 
AND SO THEY LIVED 305 
 
 just as necessary to the salvation of this coun 
 try as Lincoln s new kind of recognition of 
 human rights was half a century ago. "I am 
 about to close my speech," said the colonel, 
 "and the small service I have been able to give 
 to this nation. I went through the war, neigh 
 bors and am proud of it; but I ve done more 
 good in the peaceful service of the last three 
 years than I did in four of fighting and cam 
 paigning. That s the way I feel about what 
 we ve done in Consolidated District Number 
 One." (Vociferous and long-continued ap 
 plause.) 
 
 "Oh, Colonel!" The voice of Angie Talcott 
 rose from away back near the kitchen. "Can 
 Jennie keep on bein county superintendent, 
 now she s married?" 
 
 A great guffaw of laughter reduced poor 
 Angie to tears ; and Jennie had to go over and 
 comfort her. It was all right for her to ask 
 that, and they ought not to laugh at Angie, so 
 there! Now, you re all right, and let s talk 
 about the new schoolhouse, and so forth. Jen 
 nie brought the smiles back to Angie s face, 
 just in time to hear Jim tell the people amid 
 louder cheers that he had been asked to go into 
 
306 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 the rural-school extension work in two states, 
 and had been offered a fine salary in either 
 place, but that he wasn t even considering these 
 offers. And about that time, the children be 
 gan to get sleepy and cross and naughty, and 
 the women set in motion the agencies which 
 moved the crowd homeward. 
 
 
 Before a bright wood fire which they really 
 didn t need, but how else was Jim s mother to 
 show off the little fireplace? sat Jim and Jen 
 nie. They had been together for a week now 
 this being their homecoming and had only 
 begun to get really happy. 
 
 "Isn t it fine to have the fireplace?" said 
 Jennie. 
 
 "Yes, but we can t really afford to burn a fire 
 in it in Iowa," said Jim. "Fuel s too ever 
 lastingly scarce. If we use it much, the fagots 
 and deadwood on our glebe-land won t last 
 long." 
 
 "If you should take that Oklahoma position," 
 said Jennie, "we could afford to have open wood 
 fires all the time." 
 
 "It s warmer in Oklahoma," said Jim, "and 
 
AND SO THEY LIVED 307 
 
 wood s more plentiful. Yes" contemplatively 
 "we could, dear." 
 
 "It would be nice, wouldn t it?" said Jennie. 
 
 "All right," said Jim briskly, "get me my 
 writing materials, and we ll accept. It s still 
 open." 
 
 Jennie sat looking into the fire oblivious of 
 the suggestion. She was smiling. Jim moved 
 uneasily, and rose. 
 
 "Well," he said, "I believe I can better guess 
 where mother would put those writing mate 
 rials than you could, after all. I ll hunt them 
 up." 
 
 As he passed, Jennie took him by the hand 
 and pulled him down on the arm of her chair. 
 
 "Jim," she said, "don t be mean to me ! You 
 know you wouldn t do such a wicked, wicked 
 thing at this time as to leave the people here." 
 
 "All right," said Jim, "whatever you say is 
 the law." 
 
 When Jennie spoke again things had taken 
 place which caused her voice to emanate from 
 Jim s shirt-front. 
 
 "Did you hear," said she, "what Angie Tal- 
 cott asked?" 
 
308 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 "M h m," said Jim. 
 
 "Well," said Jennie, "now that Fm married 
 can I go on being county superintendent?" 
 
 There was a long silence. 
 
 "Would you like to?" asked Jim. 
 
 "Kind of," said Jennie; "if I knew enough 
 about things to do anything worth while; but 
 I m afraid that by rising to my full height I 
 shall always just fail to be able to see over 
 anything." 
 
 "You ve done more for the schools of the 
 county," said Jim, "in the last year than any 
 other county superintendent has ever done." 
 
 "And we shall need the money so like so 
 like the dickens," said Jennie. 
 
 "Oh, not so badly," laughed Jim, "except for 
 the first year. I ll have this little farm paying 
 as much as some quarter-sections when we get 
 squared about. Why, we can make a living on 
 this school farm, Jennie, or I m not fit to be 
 the head of the school." 
 
 There was another silence, during which 
 Jennie took down her hair, and wound it 
 around Jim s neck. 
 
AND SO THEY LIVED 309 
 
 "It will settle itself soon one of these days 
 anyhow," said he at last. "There s enough to 
 do for both of us right here." 
 
 "But they won t pay me," she protested. 
 
 "They don t pay the ministers wives," said 
 Jim, "and yet, the ministers with the right sort 
 of wives are always the best paid. I guess 
 you ll be in the bill, Jennie." 
 
 Jim walked to the open window and looked 
 out over the still landscape. The untidy grounds 
 appealed to him there would be lessons in 
 their improvement for both the children and 
 the older people. It was all good. Down in 
 the little meadow grew the dreaming trees, 
 their round crowns rising as from a sea not 
 quite to the level of the bungalow, their thrifty 
 leaves glistening in the moonlight. Across 
 the pretty bridge lay the silent little campus 
 with its twentieth-century temple facing its 
 chief priest. It was all good, without and 
 within. He went across the hall to bid his 
 mother good night. She clung to him convul 
 sively, and they had their own five minutes 
 which arranged matters for these two silent 
 
310 THE BROWN MOUSE 
 
 natures on the new basis forever. Jennie was 
 in white before the mantel when he returned, 
 smiling at the inscription thereon. 
 
 "Why didn t you put it in Latin?" she in 
 quired. "It would have had so much more dis 
 tinction." 
 
 "I wanted it to have meaning instead," said 
 Jim. "And besides, nobody who was at hand 
 was quite sure how to turn the Latin phrase. 
 Are you?" 
 
 Jennie leaned forward with her elbows on 
 her knees, and studied it. 
 
 "I believe I could," said she, "without any 
 pony. But after all, I like it better as it is. 
 I like everything, Jim everything!" 
 
 "LET US CEASE THINKING SO MUCH 
 OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION, AND 
 DEVOTE OURSELVES TO EDUCATIONAL 
 AGRICULTURE. SO WILL THE NATION 
 BE MADE STRONG." 
 
 THE END