The Brown Mouse Page 7

  CHAPTER VII

  THE NEW WINE

  In the little strip of forest which divided the sown from the Iowa sownwandered two boys in earnest converse. They seemed to be Boy Trappers, andfrom their backloads of steel-traps one of them might have been FrankMerriwell, and the other Dead-Shot Dick. However, though it was onlymid-December, and the fur of all wild varmints was at its primest, theywere bringing their traps into the settlements, instead of taking themafield. "The settlements" were represented by the ruinous dwelling of theSimmses, and the boy who resembled Frank Merriwell was Raymond Simms. Theother, who was much more barbarously accoutered, whose overalls werefringed, who wore a cartridge belt about his person, and carried hatchet,revolver, and a long knife with a deerfoot handle, and who so studiouslylooked like Dead-Shot Dick, was our old friend of the road gang, NewtonBronson. On the right, on the left, a few rods would have brought the boysout upon the levels of rich corn-fields, and in sight of the long rows ofcottonwoods, willows, box-elders and soft maples along the straight roads,and of the huge red barns, each of which possessed a numerous progeny ofoutbuildings, among which the dwelling held a dubious headship. But here,they could be the Boy Trappers--a thin fringe of bushes and trees made ofthe little valley a forest to the imagination of the boys. Newton put downhis load, and sat upon a stump to rest.

  Raymond Simms was dimly conscious of a change in Newton since the day whenthey met and helped select Colonel Woodruff's next year's seed corn.Newton's mother had a mother's confidence that Newton was now a good boy,who had been led astray by other boys, but had reformed. Jim Irwin had adistinct feeling of optimism. Newton had quit tobacco and beer, casuallystating to Jim that he was "in training." Since Jim had shown his abilityto administer a knockout to that angry chauffeur, he seemed to thishobbledehoy peculiarly a proper person for athletic confidences. Newton'smind seemed gradually filling up with interests that displaced thepsychological complex out of which oozed the bad stories and filthyallusion. Jim attributed much of this to the clear mountain atmospherewhich surrounded Raymond Simms, the ignorant barbarian driven out of hisnative hills by a feud. Raymond was of the open spaces, and refused tohear fetid things that seemed out of place in them. There was a dignitywhich impressed Newton, in the blank gaze with which Raymond greetedNewton's sallies that were wont to set the village pool room in a roar;but how could you have a fuss with a feller who knew all about trapping,who had seen a man shot, who had shot a bear, who had killed wild turkeys,who had trapped a hundred dollars' worth of furs in one winter, who knewthe proper "sets" for all fur-bearing animals, and whom you liked, and wholiked you?

  As the reason for Newton's improvement in manner of living, Raymond, outof his own experience, would have had no hesitation in naming the schooland the schoolmaster.

  "I wouldn't go back on a friend," said Newton, seated on the stump withhis traps on the ground at his feet, "the way you're going back on me."

  "You got no call to talk thataway," replied the mountain boy. "How'm Igoin' back on you?"

  "We was goin' to trap all winter," asseverated Newton, "and next winter wewere goin' up in the north woods together."

  "You know," said Raymond somberly, "that we cain't run any trap line anddo whut we got to do to he'p Mr. Jim."

  Newton sat mute as one having no rejoinder.

  "Mr. Jim," went on Raymond, "needs all the he'p every kid in thissettlement kin give him. He's the best friend I ever had. I'm a poreignerant boy, an' he teaches me how to do things that will make mesomething."

  "Darn it all!" said Newton.

  "You know," said Raymond, "that you'd think mahgty small of me, if I'ddesert Mr. Jim Irwin."

  "Well, then," replied Newton, seizing his traps and throwing them acrosshis shoulder, "come on with the traps, and shut up! What'll we do when theschool board gets Jennie Woodruff to revoke his certificate and make himquit teachin', hey?"

  "Nobody'll eveh do that," said Raymond. "I'd set in the schoolhouse do'with my rifle and shoot anybody that'd come to th'ow Mr. Jim outen theschool."

  "Not in this country," said Newton. "This ain't a gun country."

  "But it orto be either a justice kentry, or a gun kentry," replied themountain boy. "It stands to reason it must be one 'r the otheh, Newton."

  "No, it don't, neither," said Newton dogmatically.

  "Why should they th'ow Mr. Jim outen the school?" inquired Raymond. "Ain'the teachin' us right?"

  Newton explained for the tenth time that his father, Mr. Con Bonner andMr. Haakon Peterson had not meant to hire Jim Irwin at all, but each hadvoted for him so that he might have one vote. They were all against himfrom the first, but they had not known how to get rid of him. Now,however, Jim had done so many things that no teacher was supposed to do,and had left undone so many things that teachers were bound by custom toperform, that Newton's father and Mr. Bonner and Mr. Peterson had made upup their minds that they would call upon him to resign, and if hewouldn't, they would "turn him out" in some way. And the best way if theycould do it, would be to induce County Superintendent Woodruff, who didn'tlike Jim since the speech he made at the political meeting, to revoke hiscertificate.

  "What wrong's he done committed?" asked Raymond. "I don't know whatteachers air supposed to do in this kentry, but Mr. Jim seems to be theonly shore-enough teacher I ever see!"

  "He don't teach out of the books the school board adopted," repliedNewton.

  "But he makes up better lessons," urged Raymond. "An' all the things we doin school, he'ps us make a livin'."

  "He begins at eight in the mornin'," said Newton, "an' he has some of usthere till half past five, and comes back in the evening. And everySaturday, some of the kids are doin' something at the schoolhouse."

  "They don't pay him for overtime, do they?" queried Raymond. "Well, then,they orto, instid of turnin' him out!"

  "Well, they'll turn him out!" prophesied Newton. "I'm havin' more fun inschool than I ever--an' that's why I'm with you on this quittin'trapping--but they'll get Jim, all right!"

  "I'm having something betteh'n fun," replied Raymond. "My pap has neverunderstood this kentry, an' we-all has had bad times hyeh; but Mr. Jim an'I have studied out how I can make a betteh livin' next year--and pap sayswe kin go on the way Mr. Jim says. I'll work for Colonel Woodruff a partof the time, an' pap kin make corn in the biggest field. It seems wedidn't do our work right last year--an' in a couple of years, with theincrease of the hawgs, an' the land we kin get under plow...."

  Raymond was off on his pet dream of becoming something better than theoldest of the Simms tribe of outcasts, and Newton was subconsciouslyimpressed by the fact that never for a moment did Raymond's plans fail toinclude the elevation with him of Calista and Jinnie and Buddy and Pap andMam. It was taken for granted that the Simmses sank or swam together,whether their antagonists were poverty and ignorance, or their ancientfoes, the Hobdays. Newton drew closer to Raymond's side.

  It was still an hour before nine--when the rural school traditionally"takes up"--when the boys had stored their traps in a shed at the Bronsonhome, and walked on to the schoolhouse. That rather scabby and weatherededifice was already humming with industry of a sort. In spite of thehostility of the school board, and the aloofness of the patrons of theschool, the pupils were clearly interested in Jim Irwin's system of ruraleducation. Never had the attendance been so large or regular; and one ofthe reasons for sessions before nine and after four was the inability ofthe teacher to attend to the needs of his charges in the five and a halfhours called "school hours."

  This, however, was not the sole reason. It was the new sort of work whichcommanded the attention of Raymond and Newton as they entered. Thismorning, Jim had arranged in various sorts of dishes specimens of grainand grass seeds. By each was a card bearing the name of the farm fromwhich one of the older boys or girls had brought it. "Wheat, Scotch Fife,from the farm of Columbus Smith." "Timothy, or Herd's Grass, from the farmof A. B. Talcott." "Alsike Clover, from the farm of B. B. Hamm." Each lotwas in a small cloth ba
g which had been made by one of the little girls asa sewing exercise; and each card had been written as a lesson inpenmanship by one of the younger pupils, and contained, in addition to thedata above mentioned, heads under which to enter the number of grains ofthe seed examined, the number which grew, the percentage of viability, thenumber of alien seeds of weeds and other sorts, the names of theseadulterants, the weight of true and vitalized, and of foul and alien anddead seeds, the value per bushel in the local market of the seeds undertest, and the real market values of the samples, after dead seeds andalien matter had been subtracted.

  "Now get busy, here," cried Jim Irwin. "We're late! Raymond, you've aquick eye--you count seeds--and you, Calista, and Mary Smith--and mind,next year's crop may depend on making no mistakes!"

  "Mistakes!" scoffed Mary Smith, a dumpy girl of fourteen. "We don't makemistakes any more, teacher."

  It was a frolic, rather than a task. All had come with a perfectunderstanding that this early attendance was quite illegal, and not to berequired of them--but they came.

  "Newt," suggested Jim, "get busy on the percentage problems for thatsecond class in arithmetic."

  "Sure," said Newt. "Let's see.... Good seed is the base, and bad seed anddead seed the percentage--find the rate...."

  "Oh, you know!" said Jim. "Make them easy and plain and as many as you canget out--and be sure that you name the farm every pop!"

  "Got you!" answered Newton, and in a fine frenzy went at the job ofcreating a text-book in arithmetic.

  "Buddy," said Jim, patting the youngest Simms on the head, "you andVirginia can print the reading lessons this morning, can't you?"

  "Yes, Mr. Jim," answered both McGeehee Simms and his sister cheerily."Where's the copy?"

  "Here," answered the teacher, handing each a typewritten sheet for use asthe original from which the young mountaineers were to make hectographcopies, "and mind you make good copies! Bettina Hansen pretty nearly criedlast night because she had to write them over so many times on thetypewriter before she got them all right."

  The reading lesson was an article on corn condensed from a farm paper, anda selection from _Hiawatha_--the Indian-corn myth.

  "We'll be careful, Mr. Jim," said Buddy.

  Half past eight, and only half an hour until school would officially be"called."

  Newton Bronson was writing in aniline ink for the hectographs, suchproblems as these:

  "If Mr. Ezra Bronson's seed wheat carries in each 250 grains, ten cocklegrains, fifteen rye grains, twenty fox-tail seeds, three iron-weed seeds,two wild oats grains, twenty-seven wild buckwheat seeds, one wildmorning-glory seed, and eighteen lamb's quarter seeds, what percentage ofthe seeds sown is wheat, and what foul seed?"

  "If in each 250 grains of wheat in Mr. Bronson's bins, 30 are cracked,dead or otherwise not capable of sprouting, what per cent, of the seedsown will grow?"

  "If the foul seed and dead wheat amount to one-eighth by weight of themass, what did Mr. Bronson pay per bushel for the good wheat, if it costhim $1.10 in the bin, and what per cent, did he lose by the adulterationsand the poor wheat?"

  Jim ran over these rapidly. "Your mathematics is good, Newton," said theschoolmaster, "but if you expect to pass in penmanship, you'll have totake more pains."

  "How about the grammar?" asked Newton. "The writing is pretty bad, I'llown up."

  "The grammar is good this morning. You're gradually mastering the art ofstating a problem in arithmetic in English--and that's improvement."

  The hands of Jim Irwin's dollar watch gradually approached the positionindicating nine o'clock--at which time the schoolmaster rapped on his deskand the school came to order. Then, for a while, it became like otherschools. A glance over the room enabled him to enter the names of theabsentees, and those tardy. There was a song by the school, the recitationin concert of _Little Brown Hands_, some general remarks and directions bythe teacher, and the primary pupils came forward for their readingexercises. A few classes began poring over their text-books, but most ofthe pupils had their work passed out to them in the form of hectographcopies of exercises prepared in the school itself.

  As the little ones finished their recitations, they passed to the dishesof wheat, and began aiding Raymond's squad in the counting and classifyingof the various seeds. They counted to five, and they counted the fives.They laughed in a subdued way, and whispered constantly, but nobody seemeddisturbed.

  "Do they help much, Calista?" asked the teacher, as the oldest Simms girlcame to his desk for more wheat.

  "No, seh, not much," replied Calista, beaming, "but they don't hold usback any--and maybe they do he'p a little."

  "That's good," said Jim, "and they enjoy it, don't they?"

  "Oh, yes, Mr. Jim," assented Calista, "and the way Buddy is learnin' tocount is fine! They-all will soon know all the addition they is, and a lotof multiplication. Angie Talcott knows the kinds of seeds better'n what Ido!"