OCR Text |
Show THE UINTAH BASIN FARMER OUR COMIC SECTION . the farm. Youre a noted man The Brown Mouse by Herbert Quick. Its a story of the fascination that lies both In farming? and teaching? If you look for It the rig?ht way. Its read everywhere because Its soa Its charming? story, yet to be a come practical that Its sort of text book. Its Ideas have been adopted far and wide as a part of the legltmate advancement of the sciences of Is A noted book by farming? and teaching. A Scotch scientist crossed the mouse on the Japanese waltzing common white mouse and got a brown mouse which was different from any other mouse In the world. Well, young Jim Irwin Is the brown mouse. Hes a field hand and a latent genius. Jennie Woodruff likes him, but cant see a husband In him. A practical Joke results In Jim becoming the village school teacher. rock Thereupon Jim proceeds towaves the boat so hard that the scare the community and the ripples run state wide. Experience is a great teacher. Herbert Quick has been farmer, schoolmaster, lawyer, editor, public servant, social worker, war worker and several other things. Now hes probably more novelist than anything else, with a dozen and the good books to his creditand betoutput getting better ter. Vandemarks Folly" was a huge sucess and "The Hawkeye, his latest, appears to be even mort Tou see, Herbert successful. Quick knows what hes writing about. CHAPTER 1 A Maiden's Humph!" his Jim brought from days work all next of the fragrances years 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 possessed In his clothes and person the n olfactory pole opposite to the and butter the fragrant hay, the scented breath of the lowing klne perspiration and new-mow- top-dressin- g. Tflm? 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 oclocks 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 nature, had reentered 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 desultory murmur of voices ensued. Jim Irwin sat down on the bench not too close, be it observed, to the pique skirt. . . . There came into the voices a note of deeper earnestness, betokening something quite aside from the rippling of the course of true love running smoothly. In the mans voice was a tone of protest and pleading. . . . I know you are, said she, but after all these years dont you think you should be at least preparing to be something more than that? What can I do? he pleaded. Im I might tied hand and foot. have. . . . t years which he moved as lonely as a cloud, and as untouched of the life about Jim said gently. him. Its all wrong! every test of common life, he "The farm ought to be the place for ty a was failure. His family history was the best sort of career I love the a I badge of failure. People despised a soil man who was so incontestably smarter two for only Ive been teaching than 111 nominated be they, and yet could do no better and years, they say for county superintendent if I'll take with himself than to work In the fields alongside the tramps and transients It. Of course I wont It seems silly and hoboes. Save for his mother and be but If It were you, now. It would their cow and garden and flock of to a first step to a life that leads and their wretched little rented fowls something. Mother and I can live on my wages house, he was a tramp himself. His duties, his mother, and his dead and the garden and chickens, and the status as an outcast took fathers cow, said Jim. After I received my his work to away citizenship In Boyville, and teachers certificate, I tried out some way of doing the same thing drove him In upon himself, and, at 1 first, upon his school books and later on a country teachers wages. upon Emerson, Thoreau, Buskin and couldnt. It doesnt seem right. Jim rose and after pacing back and the poets, and the agricultural reports forth sat down again, a little closer and bulletins. All this degraded or exalted him to Jennie. Jennie moved away to the extreme end of the bench, and the to the position of an Intellectual farmshrinking away of Jim as If he had hand, with a sense of superiority and been repelled by some sort of negative a feeling of degradation. It made potent magnetism snowed either sensitive- Jennie Woodruffs Humph to keep him awake that night, and ness or temper. It seems as If It ought to be pos- send him to the road work with Colsible, said Jim, for a man to do onel Woodruffs team next morning work on the farm, or In the rural with hot eyes and a hotter heart. Colonel Woodruffs gray percherons schools, that would make him a liveliIt seemed to feel the unrest of their hood. If he is only a field-hanought to be possible for him to save driver, for they fretted and actually executed a, clumsy prance as Jim money and buy a farm. "Pas land Is worth two hundred Six dollars an acre, said Jennie. acre an for of months your wages even If you lived on nothing. No, he assented, It cant be done, and the other thing cant, 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. I old. HUMPH!" MARRY! YOU twenty-eigh- ... Tou might have, said sne, but, Jim, you havent . . . and I dont see any prospects. . . . I have been writing for the farm papers, said Jim ; but . . . But that doesnt get you anywhere, you know. . . . Youre a great "You Marry! deal more able and Intelligent than Ed, and see what a fine position he has In Chicago. . . Theres mother, you know, said Jim gently. You cant do anything here, said Jennie. Youve been a farm-han- d for fifteen years . . . and you always will be unless you pull yourself loose. Even a girl can make a place for herself if she doesnt marry and leaves 1 d. rrV LJ Outta Luck Again do. But a man teaching In the country ought to be able to marry. Marry I said Jennie, rather unfeelThen You marry! ingly, I think. 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 mmm ho scitooZ ' fnuTuUiffl. ana Jim began to support his mother. They had even kissed and on Jims side, lonely as was his life, cut off as it necessarily was from all companionship save that of his tiny home and his fellow-workeof the field, the tender little love-stor- y was the sole romance f his life. Jennies 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 celibacy of a sort of Twentieth-centur- y monk, without the honor of the priestly vocation. From another girl It wmuld have been bad enough, but from Jennie Woodruff and on that quiet summer nightespecially 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 fathers field-handeciding 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. Jim Irwin 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. He was not ugly. 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 personality, Jim Irwin was set off from his fellows of the Woodruff neighborhood. He was different. In local parlance, he was an off ox. He was as odd as Dicks hatband. He ran In a gang by himself. 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. Jim had Emerson, Thoreau, an Encyclopedia of English Literature, some editions of standard poets In paper covers, and a few Buskins and Carlyles all read to rags. In fact, Jim had a good library of publications which can be obtained gratis, or very cheaply and he knew their contents. H bad a personal philosophy, which while it had cost him the world In which his fellows lived, had given him one of his own. Is rs d; Irwin pulled them up at the end of the turnpike across Bronsons Slew a h 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. 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 carried the road across the marsh, and then watching 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 peat-mars- help load. Jim smiled his habitual slow, gentle smile at Newton Bronson, seventeen, undersized, tobacco-staine- d, 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 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, Newton was on the downward road in a double sense and yet, Jim Irwin rather liked him. The fellers have put up a job on volunteered Newton, as you, Jim, they began filling the wagon with gravel. What sort of job? asked Jim. Theyre nominating you for teacher, replied Newton. Since when has the position of teacher been an elective office? asked Jim. Sure, It aint elective, answered Newton. But they say that with as many brains as youve got sloshing around loose In the neighborhood, youre 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 fathers assessment for the days work, A slide of earth just then brought down a sweet-clove- r plant growing rankly beside the top of the pit. 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. He thinks we're bullheaded mules and that all the schools are bad. (TO BE CONTINUED.) Observation of Oldtlmer. Some people have as much trouble backing the gar ,out of the garage as their parents used to In backing the old horse Into the shafts. Cincinnati Enquirer. A Little Error |