The Brown Mouse Page 16

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE GLORIOUS FOURTH

  A good deal of water ran under the Woodruff District bridges in the weeksbetween the school election and the Fourth of July picnic at Eight-MileGrove. They were very important weeks to Jim Irwin, though outwardlyuneventful. Great events are often mere imperceptible developments of thespirit.

  Spring, for instance, brought a sort of spiritual crisis to Jim; for hehad to face the accusing glance of the fields as they were plowed and sownwhile he lived indoors. As he labored at the tasks of the Woodruff schoolhe was conscious of a feeling not very easily distinguished from a senseof guilt. It seemed that there must be something almost wicked in hisfailure to be afield with his team in the early spring mornings when thewoolly anemones appeared in their fur coats, the heralds of the latercomers--violets, sweet-williams, puccoons, and the scarlet prairielilies.

  A moral crisis accompanies the passing of a man from the struggle with thesoil to any occupation, the productiveness of which is not quite so clear.It requires a keenly sensitive nature to feel conscious of it, but JimIrwin possessed such a temperament; and from the beginning of the dailyrace with the seasons, which makes the life of a northern farmer an eightmonths' Marathon in which to fall behind for a week is to lose much of theyear's reward, the gawky schoolmaster slept uneasily, and heard theearliest cock-crow as a soldier hears a call to arms to which he has madeup his mind he will not respond.

  I think there is a real moral principle involved. I believe that this deepinstinct for labor in and about the soil is a valid one, and that thegathering together of people in cities has been at the cost of an obscurebut actual moral shock.

  I doubt if the people of the cities can ever be at rest in a future fullof moral searchings of conscience until every man has traced definitelythe connection of the work he is doing with the maintenance of hiscountry's population. Sometimes those vocations whose connection can notbe so traced will be recognized as wicked ones, and people engaged in themwill feel as did Jim--until he worked out the facts in the relation ofschool-teaching to the feeding, clothing and sheltering of the world. Mostschool-teaching he believed--correctly or incorrectly--has very little todo with the primary task of the human race; but as far as his teaching wasconcerned, even he believed in it. If by teaching school he could not makea greater contribution to the productiveness of the Woodruff District thanby working in the fields, he would go back to the fields. Whether he couldmake his teaching thus productive or not was the very fact in issuebetween him and the local body politic.

  These are some of the waters that ran under the bridges before the Fourthof July picnic at Eight-Mile Grove. Few surface indications there were ofany change in the little community in this annual gathering of friends andneighbors. Wilbur Smythe made the annual address, and was in rather finerfettle than usual as he paid his fervid tribute to the starry flag, and tothis very place as the most favored spot in the best country of thegreatest state in the most powerful, intellectual, freest and mostprogressive nation in the best possible of worlds. Wilbur was goingstrong. Jim Irwin read the Declaration rather well, Jennie Woodruffthought, as she sat on the platform between Deacon Avery, the oldestsettler in the district, and Mrs. Columbus Brown, the sole localrepresentative of the Daughters of the American Revolution. ColonelWoodruff presided in his Grand Army of the Republic uniform.

  The fresh northwest breeze made free with the oaks, elms, hickories andbox-elders of Eight-Mile Grove, and the waters of Pickerel Creek glimmereda hundred yards away, beyond the flitting figures of the boys whopreferred to shoot off their own fire-crackers and torpedoes andnigger-chasers, rather than to listen to those of Wilbur Smythe. Stillfarther off could be heard the voice of a lone lemonade vender as headvertised ice-cold lemonade, made in the shade, with a brand-new spade,by an old maid, as a guaranty that it was the blamedest, coldest lemonadeever sold. And under the shadiest trees a few incorrigible Marthas werespreading the snowy tablecloths on which would soon be placed thebountiful repasts stored in ponderous wicker baskets and hampers. It was alovely day, in a lovely spot--a good example of the miniature forestswhich grew naturally from time immemorial in favored locations on the Iowaprairies--half a square mile of woodland, all about which the greencorn-rows stood aslant in the cool breeze, "waist-high and laid by."

  They were passing down the rough board steps from the platform after theexercises had terminated in a rousing rendition of _America_, when JennieWoodruff, having slipped by everybody else to reach him, tapped Jim Irwinon the arm. He looked back at her over his shoulder with his slow gentlesmile.

  "Isn't your mother here, Jim?" she asked. "I've been looking all over thecrowd and can't see her."

  "She isn't here," answered Jim. "I was in hopes that when she broke looseand went to your Christmas dinner she would stay loose--but she went homeand settled back into her rut."

  "Too bad," said Jennie. "She'd have had a nice time if she had come."

  "Yes," said Jim, "I believe she would."

  "I want help," said Jennie. "Our hamper is terribly heavy. Please!"

  It was rather obvious to Mrs. Bonner that Jennie was throwing herself atJim's head; but that was an article of the Bonner family creed since thedecision which closed the hearing at the court-house. It must be admittedthat the young county superintendent found tasks which kept theschoolmaster very close to her side. He carried the hamper, helped Jennieto spread the cloth on the grass, went with her to the well for water andcracked ice wherewith to cool it. In fact, he quite cut Wilbur Smythe outwhen that gentleman made ponderous efforts to obtain a share of the favorimplied in these permissions.

  "Sit down, Jim," said Mrs. Woodruff, "you've earned a bite of what we'vegot. It's good enough, what there is of it, and there's enough of it, suchas it is!"

  "I'm sorry," said Jim, "but I've a prior engagement."

  "Why, Jim!" protested Jennie. "I've been counting on you. Don't desertme!"

  "I'm awfully sorry," said Jim, "but I promised. I'll see you later."

  One might have thought, judging by the colonel's quizzical smile, that hewas pleased at Jennie's loss of her former swain.

  "We'll have to invite Jim longer ahead of time," said he. "He's getting tobe in demand."

  He seemed to be in demand--a fact that Jennie confirmed by observation asshe chatted with Deacon Avery, Mrs. Columbus Brown and her husband, andthe Orator of the Day, at the table set apart for the guests and notables.Jim received a dozen invitations as he passed the groups seated on thegrass--one of them from Mrs. Cornelius Bonner, who saw no particular pointin advertising disgruntlement. The children ran to him and clung to hishands; young girls gave him sisterly smiles and such trifles as chickendrumsticks, pieces of cake and like tidbits. His passage to the numerousgroups at a square table under a big burr-oak was quite an ovation--anovation of the significance of which he was himself quite unaware. Thepeople were just friendly, that was all--to his mind.

  But Jennie--the daughter of a politician and a promising oneherself--Jennie sensed the fact that Jim Irwin had won something from thepeople of the Woodruff District in the way of deference. Still he was thegangling, Lincolnian, ill-dressed, poverty-stricken Jim Irwin of old, butJennie had no longer the feeling that one's standing was somewhatcompromised by association with him. He had begun to put on something moresignificant than clothes, something which he had possessed all the time,but which became valid only as it was publicly apprehended. There was aslight air of command in his down-sitting and up-rising at the picnic. Hewas clearly the central figure of his group, in which she recognized theBronsons, those queer children from Tennessee, the Simmses, the Talcotts,the Hansens, the Hamms and Colonel Woodruff's hired man, Pete, whose othername is not recorded.

  Jim sat down between Bettina Hansen, a flaxen-haired young Brunhilde ofseventeen, and Calista Simms--Jennie saw him do it, while listening toWilbur Smythe's account of the exacting nature of the big law practise hewas building up,--and would have been glad to exchange places with Calistaor Bett
ina.

  The repast drew to a close; and over by the burr-oak the crowd had grownto a circle surrounding Jim Irwin.

  "He seems to be making an address," said Wilbur Smythe.

  "Well, Wilbur," replied the colonel, "you had the first shot at us.Suppose we move over and see what's under discussion."

  As they approached the group, they heard Jim Irwin answering somethingwhich Ezra Bronson had said.

  "You think so, Ezra," said he, "and it seems reasonable that bigcreameries like those at Omaha, Sioux City, Des Moines and the othercentralizer points can make butter cheaper than we would do here--butwe've the figures that show that they aren't economical."

  "They can't make good butter, for one thing," said Newton Bronsoncockily.

  "Why can't they?" asked Olaf Hansen, the father of Bettina.

  "Well," said Newton, "they have to have so much cream that they've got toship it so far that it gets rotten on the way, and they have to renovateit with lime and other ingredients before they can churn it."

  "Well," said Raymond Simms, "I reckon they sell their butter fo' all it'swuth; an' they cain't get within from foah to seven cents a pound as muchfo' it as the farmers' creameries in Wisconsin and Minnesota get fo'theirs."

  "That's a fact, Olaf," said Jim.

  "How do you kids know so darned much about it?" queried Pete.

  "Huh!" sniffed Bettina. "We've been reading about it, and writing lettersabout it, and figuring percentages on it in school all winter. We've donearithmetic and geography and grammar and I don't know what else on it."

  "Well, I'm agin' any schoolin'," said Pete, "that makes kids smarter infarmin' than their parents and their parents' hired men. Gi' me anotherswig o' that lemonade, Jim!"

  "You see," said Jim to his audience, meanwhile pouring the lemonade, "thecentralizer creamery is uneconomic in several ways. It has to payexcessive transportation charges. It has to pay excessive commissions toits cream buyers. It has to accept cream without proper inspection, andmixes the good with the bad. It makes such long shipments that the creamspoils in transit and lowers the quality of the butter. It can't make thebest use of the buttermilk. All these losses and leaks the farmers have tostand. I can prove--and so can the six or eight pupils in the Woodruffschool who have been working on the cream question this winter--that wecould make at least six cents a pound on our butter if we had acooperative creamery and all sent our cream to it."

  "Well," said Ezra Bronson, "let's start one."

  "I'll go in," said Olaf Hansen.

  "Me, too," said Con Bonner.

  There was a general chorus of assent. Jim had convinced his audience.

  "He's got the jury," said Wilbur Smythe to Colonel Woodruff.

  "Yes," said the colonel, "and right here is where he runs into danger. Canhe handle the crowd when it's with him?"

  "Well," said Jim, "I think we ought to organize one, but I've anotherproposition first. Let's get together and pool our cream. By that, I meanthat we'll all sell to the same creamery, and get the best we can out ofthe centralizers by the cooperative method. We can save two cents a poundin that way, and we'll learn to cooperate. When we have found just howwell we can hang together, we'll be able to take up the cooperativecreamery, with less danger of falling apart and failing."

  "Who'll handle the pool?" inquired Mr. Hansen.

  "We'll handle it in the school," answered Jim.

  "School's about done," objected Mr. Bronson.

  "Won't the cream pool pretty near pay the expenses of running the schoolall summer?" asked Bonner.

  "We ought to run the school plant all the time," said Jim. "It's the onlyway to get full value out of the investment. And we've corn-club work,pig-club work, poultry work and canning-club work which make it verydesirable to keep in session with only a week's vacation. If you'll addthe cream pool, it will make the school the hardest working crowd in thedistrict and doing actual farm work, too. I like Mr. Bonner'ssuggestion."

  "Well," said Haakon Peterson, who had joined the group, "Ay tank we betterhave a meeting of the board and discuss it."

  "Well, darn it," said Columbus Brown, "I want in on this cream pool--and Ilive outside the district!"

  "We'll let you in, Clumb," said the colonel.

  "Sure!" said Pete. "We hain't no more sense than to let any one in, Clumb.Come in, the water's fine. We ain't proud!"

  "Well," said Clumb, "if this feller is goin' to do school work of thiskind, I want in the district, too."

  "We'll come to that one of these days," said Jim. "The district is toosmall."

  Wilbur Smythe's car stopped at the distant gate and honked for him--asignal which broke up the party. Haakon Peterson passed the word to thecolonel and Mr. Bronson for a board meeting the next evening. The picnicbroke up in a dispersion of staid married couples to their homes, andyoung folks in top buggies to dances and displays of fireworks in thesurrounding villages. Jim walked across the fields to his home--neitherold nor young, having neither sweetheart with whom to dance nor farm todemand labor in its inexorable chores. He turned after crawling through awire fence and looked longingly at Jennie as she was suavely assisted intothe car by the frock-coated lawyer.

  "You saw what he did?" said the colonel interrogatively, as he and hisdaughter sat on the Woodruff veranda that evening. "Who taught him thesupreme wisdom of holding back his troops when they grew too wild forattack?"

  "He may lose them," said Jennie.

  "Not so," said the colonel. "Individuals of the Brown Mouse type alwayssucceed when they find their environment. And I believe Jim has foundhis."

  "Well," said Jennie, "I wish his environment would find him some clothes.It's a shame the way he has to go looking. He'd be nice-appearing if hewas dressed anyway."

  "Would he?" queried the colonel. "I wonder, now! Well, Jennie, as hisoldest friend having any knowledge of clothes, I think it's up to you toact as a committee of one on Jim's apparel."