The Brown Mouse Part 21

After that Bettina Hansen felt, somehow, that the world could not possibly contain another man like Jim Irwin--a conviction which she still cherishes when that respectful caress has been swept into the cloudy distance of a woman's memories.

Pete, Colonel Woodruff's hired man, was watering the horses at the trough when the trouble shooter reached the Woodruff telephone. County Superintendent Jennie had run for her father's home in her little motor-car in the face of the shower, and was now on the bench where once she had said "Humph!" to Jim Irwin--and thereby started in motion the factors in this story.

"Anything wrong with your phone?" asked the trouble man of Pete.

"Nah," replied Pete. "It was on the blink till you done something down the road."

"Crossed up," said the lineman. "These trees along here are something fierce."

"I'd cut 'em all if they was mine," said Pete, "but the colonel set 'em out, along about sixty-six, and I reckon they'll have to go on a-growin'."

"Who's your school-teacher?" asked the telephone man.

The county superintendent p.r.i.c.ked up her ears--being quite properly interested in matters educational.

"Feller name of Irwin," said Pete.

"Not much of a looker," said the trouble shooter.

"Nater of the sile," said Pete. "He an' I both worked in it together till it roughened up our complexions."

"Farmer, eh?" said the lineman interrogatively. "Well, he's the first farmer I ever saw in my life that recognized there's education in the telephone business. I'm goin' to teach a cla.s.s in telephony at the schoolhouse to-morrow."

"Don't get swelled up," said Pete. "He has everybody tell them young ones about everything--blacksmith, cabinet-maker, pie-founder, cookie-cooper, dressmaker--even down to telephones. He'll have them scholars figurin' on telephones, and writin' compositions on 'em, and learnin' 'lectricity from 'em an' things like that"

"He must be some feller," said the lineman. "And who's his star pupil?"

"Didn't know he had one," said Pete. "Why?"

"Girl," said the trouble-shooter. "Goes to school from the farm where the Western Union brace is used at the road."

"Nils Hansen's girl?" asked Pete.

"Toppy little filly," said the lineman, "with silver mane--looks like she'd pull a good load and step some."

"M'h'm," grunted Pete. "Bettina Hansen. Looks well enough. What about her?"

Again the county superintendent, seated on the bench, p.r.i.c.ked up her ears that she might learn, mayhap, something of educational interest.

"I never wanted to be a school-teacher as bad," continued the shooter of trouble, "as I did when this farmer got to the low place in the road with the fair Bettina this afternoon when they was comin' home from school. The water was all over the road----"

"Then I win a smoke from the roadmaster," said Pete. "I bet him it would overflow."

"Well, if I was in the professor's place, I'd be glad to pay the bet,"

said the worldly lineman. "And I'll say this for him, he rose equal to the emergency and caved the emergency's head in. He carried her across the pond, and her a-clingin' to his neck in a way to make your mouth water.

She wasn't a bit mad about it, either."

"I'd rather have a good cigar any ol' time," said Pete. "Nothin' but a yaller-haired kid--an' a Dane at that. I had a dame once up at Spirit Lake----"

"Well, I must be drivin' on," said the lineman. "Got to get up a lecture for Professor Irwin to-morrow--and maybe I'll be able to meet that yaller-haired kid. So long!"

The county superintendent recognized at once the educational importance of the matter, when one of her country teachers adopted the policy of calling in everybody available who could teach the pupils anything special, and converting the school into a local Chautauqua served by local lecturers.

She made a run of ten miles to hear the trouble shooter's lecture. She saw the boys and some of the girls give an explanation of the telephone and the use of it. She heard the teacher give as a language exercise the next day an essay on the ethics and proprieties of eavesdropping on party lines; and she saw the beginning of an arrangement under which the boys of the Woodruff school took the contract to look after easily-remedied line troubles in the neighborhood on the basis which paid for a telephone for the school, and swelled slightly the fund which Jim was acc.u.mulating for general purposes. Incidentally, she saw how really educational was the work of the day, and that to which it led.

She had no curiosity to which she would have confessed, about the relations between Jim Irwin and his "star pupil," that young Brunhilde--Bettina Hansen; but her official duty required her to observe the att.i.tude of pupils to teachers--Bettina among them. Clearly, Jim was looked upon by the girls, large and small, as a possession of theirs. They competed for the task of keeping his desk in order, and of dusting and tidying up the schoolroom. There was something of exaltation of sentiment in this. Bettina's eyes followed him about the room in a devotional sort of way; but so, too, did those of the ten-year-olds. He was loved, that was clear, by Bettina, Calista Simms and all the rest--an excellent thing in a school.

All the same, Jennie met Jim rather oftener after the curious conversation between those rather low fellows, Pete and the trouble shooter. As autumn approached, and the time came for Jim to begin to think of his trip to Ames, Colonel Woodruff's hint that she should a.s.sume charge of the problem of Jim's clothes for the occasion, came more and more often to her mind.

Would Jim be able to buy suitable clothes? Would he understand that he ought not to appear in the costume which was tolerable in the Woodruff District only because the people there were accustomed to seeing him dressed like a tramp? Could she approach the subject with any degree of safety? Really these were delicate questions; and considering the fact that Jennie had quite dismissed her old sweetheart from the list of eligibles--had never actually admitted him to it, in fact--they a.s.sumed great importance to her mind. Once, only a little more than a year ago, she had scoffed at Jim's mention of the fact that he might think of marrying; and now she could not think of saying to him kindly, "Jim, you really must have some better clothes to wear when you go to Ames!" It would have been far easier last summer.

Somehow, Jim had been acquiring dignity and unapproachability. She must sidle up to the subject. She did. She took him into her runabout one day as he was striding toward town in that plowed-ground manner of his, and gave him a spin over to the fair grounds and two or three times around the half-mile track.

"I'm going to Ames to hear your speech," said she.

"I'm glad of that," said Jim. "More of the farmers are going from this neighborhood than ever before. I'll feel at home, if they all sit together where I can talk at them."

"Who's going?" asked Jennie.

"The Bronsons, Con Bonner and Nils Hansen and Bettina," replied Jim.

"That's all from our district--and Columbus Brown and probably others from near-by localities."

"I shall have to have some clothes," said Jennie.

Jim failed to respond to this, as clearly out of his field. They were pa.s.sing the county fair buildings, and he began expatiating on the kind of county fair he would have--a great county exposition with the schools as its central thought--a clearing house for the rural activities of all the country schools.

"And pa's going to have a suit before we go, too," said Jennie. "Here are some samples I got of Atkins, the tailor. Which would be the most becoming do you think?"

Jim looked the samples over carefully, but had little to say as to their adaptation to Colonel Woodruff's sartorial needs. Jennie laid great stress on the excellent quality of one or two samples, and carefully specified the prices of them. Jim exhibited no more than a languid and polite interest, and gave not the slightest symptom of ever having considered even remotely the contingency of having a tailor-made suit. Jennie sidled closer to the subject.

"I should think it would be awfully hard for you to get fitted in the stores," said she, "you are so very tall."

"It would be," said Jim, "if I had ever considered the matter of looks very much. I guess I'm not constructed on any plan the clothing manufacturers have regarded as even remotely possible. How about this county fair idea? Couldn't we do this next fall? You organize the teachers----"

Jennie advanced the spark, cut out the m.u.f.fler and drowned the rest of Jim's remarks in wind and dust.

"I give it up, dad," said she to her father that evening.

"What?" queried the colonel.

"Jim Irwin's clothes," she replied. "I think he'll go to Ames in a disgraceful plight, but I can't get any closer to the subject than I have done."

"Oh, then you haven't heard the news," said the colonel. "Jim's going to have his first made-to-measure suit for Ames. It's all fixed."

"Who's making it?" asked Jennie.

"Gustaf Paulsen, the Dane that's just opened a shop in town." "A Dane?"

queried Jennie. "Isn't he related to some of the neighbors?"

"A brother to Mrs. Hansen," answered the colonel.