American Agriculturist, July 21,1923 
43 
The Brown Mouse — By Herbert Quick 
“TT7ELL,” said Jennie, “do you desire to rest your case’ right here?” 
VV 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 in¬ 
teresting and original methods, what have you done in the way of teaching the 
things called for by the course of study?” 
“What is the course of study?” queried Jim. “Is it anything more than an out¬ 
line 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 writ¬ 
ing about things they have found out in relation to some of the sciences which 
are laid under contribution by farming? Everything they do runs into num¬ 
bers, 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 fommon schools. We work out from life to every¬ 
thing in the course of study.” 
“Do you mean to assert,” queried Jennie, “that while you have been doing all 
this extra work you haven’t neglected anything?” 
“I mean,” said Jim, “that I’m willing to stand or fall on an examination 
of these children' 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. 
A mass of the audience, in the midst 
of which sat Jennie’s father, rose. 
“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. 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 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?” 
% 'Jfi ^ . 
The Chicago papers had a news item 
which covered the result of the exam¬ 
inations; but the great sensation of the 
Woodruff District lay in the Sunday 
feature carried by one of them. 
I T had a picture of Jim Irwin, and 
one of Jennie Woodruff—the latter 
authentic, and the former gleaned from 
the morgue, and apparently the portrait 
of a lumber-jack. There was also a 
very free treatment by the cartoonist of 
Mr. Simms carrying a rifle with the in¬ 
tention of shooting up the school board 
in case the decision went against the 
schoolmaster. 
“When it became known,” said the 
news story, “that the schoolmaster had 
bet his job on the proficiency of his 
school in studies 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 fail¬ 
ures. But when the fight was over, and 
the dead and wounded cared for, the 
school board and the county superin¬ 
tendent 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 superintendent had decided 
that her old sweetheart was to be al¬ 
lowed the priceless boon of earning 
forty dollars a month during the re¬ 
mainder of his contract, Mr. Bonner 
said, ‘Aside from being licked, we’re 
all right. But we’ll get this guy yet, 
-don’t fergit that!’ ” 
“ ‘The examinations tind to show,’ 
said Mr. Bonner, when asked for his 
opinion'on the result, ‘that in or-r-rder 
to' larn anything you shud shtudy some¬ 
thin’ ilse. Btit we’ll git this guy yit!’ ” 
“Jim,” said Colonel Woodruff, as they 
rode home together, “the next heat is 
the 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 con¬ 
tract? 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 under¬ 
stand what you’re driving at. And I 
like being a wild-eyed reformer more 
and more.” 
CHAPTER XIV 
THE COLONEL TAKES THE FIELD 
E VERY Iowa County has its Farm¬ 
ers’ Institute. The Woodruff Dis¬ 
trict was interested in the Institute be¬ 
cause 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 hfe to the presi¬ 
dent of the institute. 
“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 discussing.” 
Such exhibits are now so common 
that it is not worth while 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, judg¬ 
ing grains and live stock was so new 
in that county as to be the real sen¬ 
sation of the institute. 
Two persons were a good deal em¬ 
barrassed by the success of the exhibit. 
One was the county superintendent, 
who was constantly in receipt of un¬ 
deserved 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 din¬ 
ner 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, and 
juggled back into place the silverware 
misappropriated to alien and unusual 
uses. But, when the meal had pro¬ 
gressed 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 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.” 
J IM was staggered. What was an 
honorarium? He tried to remember 
what an honorarium 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. 
“I—I’ll try to take care of the honor¬ 
arium,” 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 ex¬ 
travagant it will pay you your expenses 
and give you a few dollars over.” 
Jim breathed more freely. 
“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 actually worth 
paying for his thoughts. 
Calista Simms thought she saw some¬ 
thing shining and saint-like about the 
homely face of her teacher as he came 
to her post in the room in which the 
school exhibit was held. Calista was 
in charge of the little children whose 
work was to be demonstrated that day, 
and was in a state of exaltation to 
which her starved being had hitherto 
been a stranger. 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 un¬ 
derstood the sense of wellbeing and 
happiness in Calista’s soul at the feel¬ 
ing of her whole clean underclothes, her 
neat, if cheap, dress, and the “bought- 
en” 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. 
“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 Bon¬ 
ner: 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 together. He went 
WHAT HAS HAPPENED 
IM IRWIN is on trial! He 
has endeavored to introduce 
new methods into the District 
School and the school board has 
impeached him for incompetency. 
Worse yet, his old sweetheart 
Jennie Woodruff, now County 
Superintendent, is presiding at 
the .trial. Col. Woodruff, her 
father, is in the audience, but no 
one suspects him of having ad¬ 
ministered encouragement to the 
perplexed young teacher, nor of 
rounding up the eager young¬ 
sters who come to court to be ex¬ 
amined in the studies Jim is ac¬ 
cused of neglecting. 
The case against Jim has been 
presented. 
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 exul¬ 
tation over his defeat of them at the 
hearing before Jennie Woodruff. When 
Jim 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, 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 candidates 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.” 
“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. 
“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 
{Continued on page 45) 
• :•] pm 
