American Agriculturist, May 26, 1923 
459 
The 
Brown 
Mouse — By Herbert Quick 
J IM 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 this?” protested Newton, who was 
developing an unwonted perspiration, “None of the others are heatin’ them¬ 
selves 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, came 
down with it, its dark green foliage anchored by the long roots which penetrated 
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._ 
“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, before 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 aii’—” 
“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 leaves, or their 
roots. They never had to learn, be¬ 
cause when the little plants—bacteria 
— found that the big plants had roots 
with sap in them, they located on those 
roots and tapped them for the sap they 
needed. They began to get their board 
and lodging 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 nitro¬ 
gen 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?” in¬ 
terrogated Newt defiantly, 
‘‘'VTT’ELL, get busy with that shovel,” 
VV suggested Jim, who had been 
working steadily, driving out upon the 
fill occasionally to unload. On his re¬ 
turn from dumping the next load, New¬ 
ton seemed, in a superior way, quite 
amiably disposed toward his workfellow 
— rather the habitual 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 voting 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 mule—and that the whole dis¬ 
trict 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 eco¬ 
nomically 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 concen¬ 
trated within talking distance, he found 
that the project of heckling and chaff¬ 
ing him about his eminent fitness for a 
scholastic position 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 Re¬ 
publican convention he was nominated 
in—eh. Con?” 
“Con” was Cornelius Bonner, an 
Irishman, one of the deadlocked school 
hoard, and the captain of the road 
graded. He winked back at the path- 
master. 
“Jim’s the gray-eyed man o’destiny,” 
he replied, “if he can get two votes in 
that board.” 
“You’d vote for me, wouldn’t you. 
Con?” asked Jim. 
“I’ll try anything 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 anything just for wance, 
it shouldn’t be an irrevocable shtip, me 
bye.” 
“You’re a reasonable board of public 
servants,” said Jim ironically. “I’d 
like to tell the whole board what I think 
of them.” 
“Come down to-night,” said Bonner 
jeeringly. “ 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 convintion. 
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 impTyers. 
Come down to the schoolhouse, and 
we’ll have a field-hand addriss the 
school board—and begosh. I’ll move 
yer illiction mesilf! Come, now, Jimmy, 
me bye, be game. It’ll vary the pro¬ 
gram, annyhow.” 
The entire gang grinned. Jim 
flushed, and then reconquered his calm¬ 
ness 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 II 
REVERSED UNANIMITY 
T he great blade of the grading ma¬ 
chine, 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 
exchanged 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 de¬ 
serted 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, pressing his nose into 
people’s palms, licking their clothing 
and otherwise making a nuisance of 
himself. That there was some mystery 
about 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 strain¬ 
ing, 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 gi’ader moved along one side 
of the highway, a high-powered auto¬ 
mobile approached on the other. It 
was attempting to rush the swale for 
the hill opposite, and making rather 
bad weather of the newly repaired 
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 
earth, and the chauffeur fuming at the 
possibility 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.” 
T he chauffeur sought words appro¬ 
priate to his feelings. Ponto and his 
muzzle saved him the trouble. A pretty 
pointer leaped from the car, and at¬ 
tracted by the evident friendliness of 
Ponto’s greeting, pricked up its ears, 
and sought, in a spirit of canine broth¬ 
erhood, 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 
apologize, 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. 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 
Newton’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 operation 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 
necessarily preceding the nose. The 
chauffeur behaved much as his pointer 
had done, saving and excepting that 
the pointer did not swear. 
It was funny—even the pain involved 
could not make it otherwise than funny. 
The grading gang laughed to a man. 
Newton grinned even while in the fell 
clutch of circumstance. Ponto tried to 
smell the chauffeur’s trousers, and 
what had been a laugh became a roar. 
Caution and mercy departed from 
the chauffeur’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. “Get in, and let’s 
be on our way!” 
The chauffeur, however, recognized 
in a man of mature years and full size, 
a relief from his embarrassment. He 
released Newton, and blindly, furiously, 
he delivered a blow meant for Jim’s 
jaw, but which miscarried by a foot. 
In reply, Jim countered with an awk¬ 
ward swinging uppercut, which was 
superior to the chauffeur’s blow in one 
respect only—it landed fairly on the 
point of the jaw. The chauffeur stag¬ 
gered and slowly toppled over into the 
soft earth. Newton Bronson slipped 
behind a hedge, and took his infernally 
equipped dog with him. The grader 
gang formed a ring about the com¬ 
batants and waited. Colonel Woodruff, 
driving toward home in his runabout, 
held up by the traffic blockade, asked 
what was going on, and the chauffeur, 
rising groggily, picked up his goggles, 
climbed into the car; the meeting dis¬ 
solved, leaving Jim Irwin greatly em¬ 
barrassed 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 instruc¬ 
tions for the next day and drove on. 
The road gang dispersed for the after¬ 
noon. Newton Bronson carefully se¬ 
creted the magic muzzle, and chuckled 
at what had been perhaps the most 
picturesquely successful bit of deviltry 
in his 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 addressed 
the chair. 
“Mr. Prisidint,” said he, “we have 
wid Us t’night, a young man who nades 
no introduction to an audience in this 
place, Mr. Jim Irwin. 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 teach¬ 
er; and pinding that motion, I move 
that he be given the floor.” / 
Much laughter from the board and 
the spectators, as Jim arose. He looked 
upon it as ridicule 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 are simply mak¬ 
ing 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 
HOW THE STORY STARTED 
J IM IRWIN, Col. Woodruff’s 
field-hand was somewhat de¬ 
spised because his “book learning” 
did not raise him above the level 
of a farm laborer. Jennie Wood¬ 
ruff' was especially scornful, and 
let her old school fellow see it. 
Her distain hurt him, for he felt 
sure his theories of pi’actical edu¬ 
cation were right. Meanwhile, he 
worked on the road with others 
of the locality, among them young 
Newton Bronson, rapidly develop¬ 
ing into a township problem. 
teaching methods of one of these teach¬ 
ers would be any better than or much 
diffei'ent from those of the others. You 
know, and I know, that whichever is 
finally engaged, or even if your silly 
deadlock is broken by employing a new 
candidate, 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 knockdown, they hadn’t 
thought Jim Irwin could do it. 
“WMl,” 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 economic¬ 
ally useful. It was all dry stuff copied 
from the city schools. No other pupil 
ever did any real work of the sort 
farmers’ boys and girls should do. We 
copied city schools—and made bad 
copies of them, too.” 
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 
{Contimied on page 460) 
