American Agriculturist, May 19,1923 
443 
The Brown Mouse — By Herbert Quick 
CHAPTER I 
A maiden’s “humph!’ 
A FARM-HAND nodded in answer 
to a question asked him by Napoleon 
on the morning of Waterloo. The nod 
was false, or the emperor misunder¬ 
stood—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 under¬ 
stood as modified by “for a while.” But 
this story may change the world per¬ 
manently. 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 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 people who have 
a 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 conversational commerce, 
which was accepted at its face value by 
the farm-hand as an evidence of dis¬ 
pleasure, 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 happenings. 
Jim brought from his day’s work all 
the fragrances of next year’s meadows. 
He had been feeding the crops. All 
things have opposite poles, and the 
scents of the farm are no exception to 
the rule. Just now, Jim Irwin pos¬ 
sessed in his clothes and person the 
olfactory pole opposite to the new-mown 
hay, the fragrant butter and the scented 
breath of the lowing kine—perspira¬ 
tion 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 
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. Turning to latch 
the gate, he saw through the dusk the 
white dress under the tree and drawn 
by the greatest attraction known in na¬ 
ture, had reentered the Woodruff 
grounds and strolled back. 
“It’s all wrong!” said Jim gently. 
“The fai’m 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 superintendent 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 something.” 
“Mother and I can live on my wages 
— and the garden and chickens and the 
cow,” said Jim. “After I received my 
teacher’s certificate, 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.” 
A BRIEF hello betrayed old acquaint¬ 
ance, 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 observed, to the white 
skirt. . . . There came into the voices 
a note of deeper^ earnestness, betoken¬ 
ing* 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 some¬ 
thing 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 prospects. . . .” 
“I Ifkve 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 
J IM rose and after pacing back and 
forth sat down again, a little closer to 
Jennie. Jennie moved away to the ex¬ 
treme end of the bench, and the shrink¬ 
ing away of Jim as if he had been re¬ 
pelled by some sort of negative mag¬ 
netism showed either sensitiveness or 
temper. 
“It seems as if it ought to be pos¬ 
sible,” 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 dol¬ 
lars 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. 2 do.” 
“But a man teaching in the country 
ought to be able to marry.” 
“Marry!” said Jennie, rather unfeel¬ 
ingly, I think. “You marry!” Then 
after remaining silent for nearly a 
minute, she uttered the syllable—with¬ 
out the utterance of which this nar¬ 
rative . would not have been written. 
“You marry! Humph!” 
Jim Irwin rose from the bench ting¬ 
ling with the insult he found in her 
tone. They had been boy-and-girl 
sweethearts in the old days at the^Wood- 
ruff schoolhouse down the road, and be¬ 
fore the fateful time when Jennie went 
“off to school” and Jim began to sup¬ 
port 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 romance of his life. Jennie’s 
“Humph!” retired this romance from 
circulation, he felt. 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 be¬ 
cause he could not trust himself to say 
more. 
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, 
sometimes hinge on trivial things. (Con¬ 
sidered deeply, all those matters which 
we are wont to call great events are 
only the outward and visible 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 fol¬ 
lowed, 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 
Stephenson of a tubular boiler for his 
locomotive engine, and Cyrus McCor¬ 
mick of a sickle-bar, and the world was 
changed by those thoughts, rather than 
by the machines themselves. As a man 
thinketh so is he; and as men think so 
is the world. Jim Irwin went home 
thinking of the “Humph!” of Jennie 
Woodruff—thinking with hot waves and 
cold waves running over his body, and 
swellings in his throat. Such thoughts 
centered upon his clubfoot made Lord 
Byron a great sardonic poet. That club 
foot set him apart 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 clubfooted; 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 propriety 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 Jen¬ 
nie wore her hair down her back. 
Thoreau, a John B. Alden edition of 
Chambers’ Encyclopedia of English 
Literature, some Franklin Square edi¬ 
tions 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 stand¬ 
ards of comparison. And he had piles 
of reports of the secretary of agricul- 
tui“e, college bulletins and publications 
of the various bureaus of the Depart¬ 
ment of Agfriculture at Washington. In 
fact, he had a good library of publica¬ 
tions which can be obtained gratis, or 
very cheaply—and he knew their con¬ 
tents. 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. 
H 
E seemed sujierior to the neighbor 
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 pi’chlem of 
terminating that old childish love affair 
B ut in spite of this homely charm of 
personality, Jim Irwin was set off 
from his fellowg of the Woodruff neigh¬ 
borhood. He was different. In local par¬ 
lance, he was an off ox. 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 horribly like Sir 
Toby Belch, and played pool in the vil¬ 
lage saloon. He had always liked to 
read, and had piles of literature in his 
attic room which was good, because it 
was cheap. Very few people know that 
cheap literature is very likely to be 
good, because it is old and unprotected 
by copyright. He had Emerson, 
i 
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.” 
V 
boys, and felt so; but this feeling 
was curiously mingled with a sense of 
degradation. By every test of common 
life, he was a 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 
alongside the tramps. Save for his 
mother and their cow and garden and 
flock of fowls and their wretched little 
rented house, he was a tramp himself. 
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, leaving the 
baby and widow, and nothing else save 
the horse and buggy. That horse and 
buggy were still on the Irwin books rep¬ 
resented by Spot the cow—so persistent 
are the assets of cautious poverty. Mrs. 
Irwin had labored in kitchen and sew¬ 
ing 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 Dis¬ 
trict school. His duties, his mother, 
and his father’s status as an outcast 
drove him in upon himself, and, at first, 
upon his school books which he mastered 
so easily and quickly as to become the 
star pupil of the Woodruff District 
school, and later upon Emerson, 
Thoreau, Ruskin and the 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 degradation. It made Jen¬ 
nie 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 practice, 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 be¬ 
come 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 prance 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 Dis¬ 
trict the opportunity to hold the male 
equivalent of a sewing circle while 
working out their road taxes, with much 
conversational gain, and no great dam¬ 
age to the road. 
In fact, Columbus Brown, the path- 
master, prided himself on the Bronson 
Slew Turnpike as his greatest triumph 
in road engineering. The work con¬ 
sisted in hauling, dragging and carry¬ 
ing gravel out on the low fill which car¬ 
ried the road across the marsh, and then 
watching it slowly settle until the next 
“You marry?'’’ said Jennie, “Humph!’ 
summer. 
“Haul gravel from the east gravel 
|>ed, Jim,” called Columbus Brown from 
the lowest spot in the middle of the 
Continued on page (444) 
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