The Brown Mouse Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  JIM TALKS THE WEATHER COLD

  "Going to the rally, James?"

  Jim had finished his supper, and yearned for a long evening in his atticden with his cheap literature. But as the district schoolmaster he was tosome extent responsible for the protection of the school property, andfelt some sense of duty as to exhibiting an interest in public affairs.

  "I guess I'll have to go, mother," he replied regretfully. "I want to seeMr. Woodruff about borrowing his Babcock milk tester, and I'll go thatway. I guess I'll go on to the meeting."

  He kissed his mother when he went--a habit from which he never deviated,and another of those personal peculiarities which had marked him asdifferent from the other boys of the neighborhood. His mother urged hisovercoat upon him in vain--for Jim's overcoat was distinctly a bad one,while his best suit, now worn every day as a concession to his scholasticposition, still looked passably well after several weeks of schoolroomduty. She pressed him to wear a muffler about his neck, but he declinedthat also. He didn't need it, he said; but he was thinking of theincongruity of a muffler with no overcoat. It seemed more logical toassume that the weather was milder than it really was, on that sharpOctober evening, and appear at his best, albeit rather aware of the cold.Jennie was at home, and he was likely to see and be seen of her.

  "You can borrow that tester," said the colonel, "and the cows that go withit, if you can use 'em. They ain't earning their keep here. But how doesthe milk tester fit into the curriculum of the school? A decoration?"

  "We want to make a few tests of the cows in the neighborhood," answeredJim. "Just another of my fool notions."

  "All right," said the colonel. "Take it along. Going to the speakin'?"

  "Certainly, he's going," said Jennie, entering. "This is my meeting,Jim."

  "Surely, I'm going," assented Jim. "And I think I'll run along."

  "I wish we had room for you in the car," said the colonel. "But I'm goingaround by Bronson's to pick up the speaker, and I'll have a chuck-upload."

  "Not so much of a load as you think," said Jennie. "I'm going with Jim.The walk will do me good."

  Any candidate warms to her voting population just before election; butJennie had a special kindness for Jim. He was no longer a farm-hand. Thefact that he was coming to be a center of disturbance in the district, andthat she quite failed to understand how his eccentric behavior could beharmonized with those principles of teaching which she had imbibed at thestate normal school in itself lifted him nearer to equality with her. Apublic nuisance is really more respectable than a nonentity.

  She gave Jim a thrill as she passed through the gate that he opened forher. White moonlight on her white furs suggested purity, exaltation, theessence of womanhood--things far finer in the woman of twenty-seven thanthe glamour thrown over him by the schoolgirl of sixteen.

  Jim gave her no thrill; for he looked gaunt and angular in his skimpy,ready-made suit, too short in legs and sleeves, and too thin for theseason. Yet, as they walked along, Jim grew upon her. He strode on withimmense strides, made slow to accommodate her shorter steps, andembarrassing her by his entire absence of effort to keep step. For allthat, he lifted his face to the stars, and he kept silence, save forcertain fragments of his thoughts, in dropping which he assumed that she,like himself, was filled with the grandeur of the sparkling sky, its vastmoon, plowing like an astronomical liner through the cloudlets of awool-pack. He pointed out the great open spaces in the Milky Way,wondering at their emptiness, and at the fact that no telescope can findstars in them.

  They stopped and looked. Jim laid his hard hands on the shoulders of herwhite fur collarette.

  "What's the use of political meetings," said Jim, "when you and I canstand here and think our way out, even beyond the limits of ourUniverse?"

  "A wonderful journey," said she, not quite understanding his mood, butvery respectful to it.

  "And together," said Jim. "I'd like to go on a long, long journey with youto-night, Jennie, to make up for the years since we went anywheretogether."

  "And we shouldn't have come together to-night," said Jennie, getting backto earth, "if I hadn't exercised my leap-year privilege."

  She slipped her arm in his, and they went on in a rather intimate way.

  "I'm not to blame, Jennie," said he. "You know that at any time I'd havegiven anything--anything--"

  "And even now," said Jennie, taking advantage of his depleted stock ofwords, "while we roam beyond the Milky Way, we aren't getting any votesfor me for county superintendent."

  Jim said nothing. He was quite, quite reestablished on the earth.

  "Don't you want me to be elected, Jim?"

  Jim seemed to ponder this for some time--a period of taking the matterunder advisement which caused Jennie to drop his arm and busy herself withher skirts.

  "Yes," said Jim, at last; "of course I do."

  Nothing more was said until they reached the schoolhouse door.

  "Well," said Jennie rather indignantly, "I'm glad there are plenty ofvoters who are more enthusiastic about me than you seem to be!"

  More interesting to a keen observer than the speeches, were the unusualthings in the room itself. To be sure, there were on the blackboardsexercises and outlines, of lessons in language, history, mathematics,geography and the like. But these were not the usual things taken fromtext-books. The problems in arithmetic were calculations as to the feedingvalue of various rations for live stock, records of laying hens andcomputation as to the excess of value in eggs produced over the cost offeed. Pinned to the wall were market reports on all sorts of farmproducts, and especially numerous were the statistics on the prices ofcream and butter. There were files of farm papers piled about, and racksof agricultural bulletins. In one corner of the room was a typewritingmachine, and in another a sewing machine. Parts of an old telephone werescattered about on the teacher's desk. A model of a piggery stood on ashelf, done in cardboard. Instead of the usual collection of text-books inthe desk, there were hectograph copies of exercises, reading lessons,arithmetical tables and essays on various matters relating to agriculture,all of which were accounted for by two or three hand-made hectographs--avery fair sort of printing plant--lying on a table. The members of theschool board were there, looking on these evidences of innovation withwonder and more or less disfavor. Things were disorderly. The text-booksrecently adopted by the board against some popular protest had evidentlybeen pitched, neck and crop, out of the school by the man whom Bonner hadtermed a dub. It was a sort of contempt for the powers that be.

  Colonel Woodruff was in the chair. After the speechifying was over, andthe stereotyped, though rather illogical, appeal had been made for votersof the one party to cast the straight ticket, and for those of the otherfaction to scratch, the colonel rose to adjourn the meeting.

  Newton Bronson, safely concealed behind taller people, called out, "JimIrwin! speech!"

  There was a giggle, a slight sensation, and many voices joined in the callfor the new schoolmaster.

  Colonel Woodruff felt the unwisdom of ignoring the demand. Probably herelied upon Jim's discretion and expected a declination.

  Jim arose, seedy and lank, and the voices ceased, save for anothersuppressed titter.

  "I don't know," said Jim, "whether this call upon me is a joke or not. Ifit is, it isn't a practical one, for I can't talk. I don't care much aboutparties or politics. I don't know whether I'm a Democrat, a Republican ora Populist."

  This caused a real sensation. The nerve of the fellow! Really, it must injustice be said, Jim was losing himself in a desire to tell his truefeelings. He forgot all about Jennie and her candidacy--about everythingexcept his real, true feelings. This proves that he was no politician.

  "I don't see much in this county campaign that interests me," he wenton--and Jennie Woodruff reddened, while her seasoned father covered hismouth with his hand to conceal a smile. "The politicians come out into thefarming districts every campaign and get us hayseeds for anything theywant.
They always have got us. They've got us again! They give usclodhoppers the glad hand, a cheap cigar, and a cheaper smile afterelection;--and that's all. I know it, you all know it, they know it. Idon't blame them so very much. The trouble is we don't ask them to doanything better. I want a new kind of rural school; but I don't see anyprospect, no matter how this election goes, for any change in them. We inthe Woodruff District will have to work out our own salvation. Ourpolitical ring never'll do anything but the old things. They don't wantto, and they haven't sense enough to do it if they did. That's all--and Idon't suppose I should have said as much as I have!"

  There was stark silence for a moment when he sat down, and then as manycheers for Jim as for the principal speaker of the evening, cheers mingledwith titters and catcalls. Jim felt a good deal as he had done when heknocked down Mr. Billy's chauffeur--rather degraded and humiliated, as ifhe had made an ass of himself. And as he walked out of the door, thefuture county superintendent passed by him in high displeasure, and walkedhome with some one else.

  Jim found the weather much colder than it had been while coming. He reallyneeded an Eskimo's fur suit.