American Agriculturist, June 2,1923 
475 
The Brown Mouse ^ By Herbert Quick 
H e dropped into his chair, while the secretary drew from his portfolio a con¬ 
tract duly drawn up save for the signatures of the officers of the district, and 
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. 
“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. Then he thought 
of Jennie Woodruff’s “Humph!”—and he signed! 
“Move we adjourn,” said Peterson. 
“No ’bjection ’tis so ordered!” said Mr. Bronson. 
The secretary and Jim went out, while the directors waited. 
“What the Billy—” began Bonner, and finished lamely. “What for did you vote 
for the dub, Ez?” 
“I voted for him,” replied Bronson, “because he fought for my boy this aftei*- 
noon. 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 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 Woodruff’s 
“Humph!” 
CHAPTER III 
WHAT IS A BROWN MOUSE 
MMEDIATELY upon the accidental 
election of Jim Irwin to the position 
of teacher of the Woodruff school, he de¬ 
veloped habits somewhat 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 
something 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. 
The Simms family, being from the 
mountings of Tennessee, were rather 
startled one night, when Jim Irwin, 
homely, stooped and errandless, 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. Other¬ 
wise, 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 ap¬ 
pearance, 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 ex¬ 
pected 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 this- 
away.” 
“How so?” queried Jim Irwin. 
“You’d more’n likely git shot up 
some,” replied 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 road—nobody else will.” 
“I reckon,” replied Mr. Simms, “that 
We-all will have to accommodate our- 
se’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 re¬ 
minded'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 
cornfields 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 mountains, 
and suited the lonesome Simmses much 
more than a better farm would have 
done. They were not of the Iowa peo¬ 
ple anyhow, 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 ex¬ 
pecting 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 Virginia, but called Jin- 
nie—and a smaller lad who rejoiced in 
the name of McGeehee, but was merci¬ 
fully called Buddy. 
Calista squirmed for something to 
say. “Raymond runs a line o’ traps 
when the fur’s prime,” she volunteered. 
T hen came a long talk on traps and 
trapping, shooting, hunting and the 
joys of the mountings—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 hurriedly 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. Evi¬ 
dently 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 Ray¬ 
mond to help him select seed corn. He 
was going to teach the school next win¬ 
ter, 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 superin¬ 
tendence. 
I N the evening they looked the grain 
over on the Woodruff lawn, and the 
colonel talked about corn and corn 
selection. They had supper 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, observed 
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 confi¬ 
dential hint as to plans, and some sug¬ 
gestion that Jim was relying on the 
aid and comfort 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 Ray¬ 
mond Simms, it was clearly best to 
leave him alone. All this talk of com 
selection and related things was new to 
him, and he drank it in thirstily. 
“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 of the country for 
hiring him by mistake, and they’re 
irritated.” 
“If he could feel like anything but 
an underling, he’d succeed,” said Jennie. 
“That’s his heredity,” stated the col¬ 
onel, 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 waltz¬ 
ing mouse with the common white 
mouse. Jim’s peddling 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. Jim ought to be a mongrel, and 
I’ve always considered 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 ever seen. It ran away, 
and bit and gnawed, and raised hob. 
It was what we breeders call a Men- 
delian segregation of genetic factors 
that had been in the waltzers and 
albinos 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 Vm 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.” 
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, “/’m far 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 re¬ 
duced all jobs to an equality, and it 
meant equality in iritellectual 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, too!” 
CHAPTER IV 
THE FIRST DAY AT SCHOOL 
SUPPOSE every reader will say 
that genius consists very largely in 
seeing Opportunity in the set of cir¬ 
cumstances or thoughts or impressions 
that constitute Opportunity, and mak¬ 
ing the best of them. 
Jim Irwin would have said so, any¬ 
how. 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 
WHAT HAS HAPPENED? 
HEN Jennie Woodruff said 
“Humph!” Jim Irwin de¬ 
cided that he would be something 
besides her father’s field hand 
after all. He had often expressed 
his opinion of what a rural school 
should be, and through a fluke is 
elected to the vacant position of 
school-teacher and must make 
good his theories. 
Among Jim’s loyal adherents is 
17-year old Newton Bronson, 
whose truancy and pool-playing 
are making him a local problem. 
Jim fights for Newton in a road¬ 
side argument and as a result Mr. 
Bronson nominates him for the 
position. 
Matthews’ Getting on in the World — 
which is the best book of purely conven¬ 
tional 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 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 successful draw¬ 
ing on his slate had filled him with am¬ 
bition of becoming a Rubens—and the 
story of Benjamin West in his school 
(Continued on page 476) 
They looked the grain over on the Colo^ieVs lawn 
