The Brown Mouse Part 7

Jim ran over these rapidly. "Your mathematics is good, Newton," said the schoolmaster, "but if you expect to pa.s.s in penmanship, you'll have to take more pains."

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

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

The hands of Jim Irwin's dollar watch gradually approached the position indicating nine o'clock--at which time the schoolmaster rapped on his desk and the school came to order. Then, for a while, it became like other schools. A glance over the room enabled him to enter the names of the absentees, and those tardy. There was a song by the school, the recitation in concert of _Little Brown Hands_, some general remarks and directions by the teacher, and the primary pupils came forward for their reading exercises. A few cla.s.ses began poring over their text-books, but most of the pupils had their work pa.s.sed out to them in the form of hectograph copies of exercises prepared in the school itself.

As the little ones finished their recitations, they pa.s.sed to the dishes of wheat, and began aiding Raymond's squad in the counting and cla.s.sifying of the various seeds. They counted to five, and they counted the fives.

They laughed in a subdued way, and whispered constantly, but n.o.body seemed disturbed.

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

"No, seh, not much," replied Calista, beaming, "but they don't hold us back 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," a.s.sented Calista, "and the way Buddy is learnin' to count is fine! They-all will soon know all the addition they is, and a lot of multiplication. Angie Talcott knows the kinds of seeds better'n what I do!"

CHAPTER VIII

AND THE OLD BOTTLES

The day pa.s.sed. Four o'clock came. In order that all might reach home for supper, there was no staying, except that Newt Bronson and Raymond Simms remained to sweep and dust the schoolroom, and prepare kindling for the next morning's fire--a work they had taken upon themselves, so as to enable the teacher to put on the blackboards such outlines for the morrow's cla.s.s work as might be required. Jim was writing on the board a list of words const.i.tuting a spelling exercise. They were not from the text-book, but grew naturally out of the study of the seed wheat--"c.o.c.kle," "morning-glory," "convolvulus," "viable," "viability,"

"sprouting," "iron-weed" and the like. A tap was heard at the door, and Raymond Simms opened it.

In filed three women--and Jim Irwin knew as he looked at them that he was greeting a deputation, and felt that it meant a struggle. For they were the wives of the members of the school board. He placed for them the three available chairs, and in the absence of any for himself remained standing before them, a gaunt shabby-looking revolutionist at the bar of settled usage and fixed public opinion.

Mrs. Haakon Peterson was a tall blonde woman who, when she spoke betrayed her Scandinavian origin by the northern burr to her "r's," and a slight difficulty with her "j's," her "y's" and long "a's." She was slow-spoken and dignified, and Jim felt an instinctive respect for her personality.

Mrs. Bronson was a good motherly woman, noted for her housekeeping, and for her church activities. She looked oftener at her son, and his friend Raymond than at the schoolmaster. Mrs. Bonner was the most voluble of the three, and was the only one who shook hands with Jim; but in spite of her rather offhand manner, Jim sensed in the little, black-eyed Irishwoman the real commander of the expedition against him--for such he knew it to be.

"You may think it strange of us coming after hours," said she, "but we wanted to speak to you, teacher, without the children here."

"I wish more of the parents would call," said Jim. "At any hour of the day."

"Or night either, I dare say," suggested Mrs. Bonner. "I hear you've the scholars here at all hours, Jim."

Jim smiled his slow patient smile.

"We do break the union rules, I guess, Mrs. Bonner," said he; "there seems to be more to do than we can get done during school hours."

"What right have ye," struck in Mrs. Bonner, "to be burning the district's fuel, and wearing out the school's property out of hours like that--not that it's anny of my business," she interposed, hastily, as if she had been diverted from her chosen point of attack. "I just thought of it, that's all. What we came for, Mr. Irwin, is to object to the way the teachin's being done--corn and wheat, and hogs and the like, instead of the learnin' schools was made to teach."

"Schools were made to prepare children for life, weren't they, Mrs.

Bonner?"

"To be sure," went on Mrs. Bonner, "I can see an' the whole district can see that it's easier for a man that's been a farm-hand to teach farm-hand knowledge, than the learnin' schools was set up to teach; but if so be he hasn't the book education to do the right thing, we think he should get out and give a real teacher a chance."

"What am I neglecting?" asked Jim mildly.

Mrs. Bonner seemed unprepared for the question, and sat for an instant mute. Mrs. Peterson interposed her attack while Mrs. Bonner might be recovering her wind.

"We people that have had a hard time," she said in a precise way which seemed to show that she knew exactly what she wanted, "want to give our boys and girls a chance to live easier lives than we lived. We don't want our children taught about nothing but work. We want higher things."

"Mrs. Peterson," said Jim earnestly, "we must have first things first.

Making a living is the first thing--and the highest."

"Haakon and I will look after making a living for our family," said she.

"We want our children to learn nice things, and go to high school, and after a while to the Juniwersity."

"And I," declared Jim, "will send out from this school, if you will let me, pupils better prepared for higher schools than have ever gone from it--because they will be trained to think in terms of action. They will go knowing that thoughts must always be linked with things. Aren't your children happy in school, Mrs. Peterson?"

"I don't send them to school to be happy, Yim," replied Mrs. Peterson, calling him by the name most familiarly known to all of them; "I send them to learn to be higher people than their father and mother. That's what America means!"

"They'll be higher people--higher than their parents--higher than their teacher--they'll be efficient farmers, and efficient farmers' wives.

They'll be happy, because they will know how to use more brains in farming than any lawyer or doctor or merchant can possibly use in his business.

I'm educating them to find an outlet for genius in farming!"

"It's a fine thing," said Mrs. Bonner, coming to the aid of her fellow soldiers, "to work hard for a lifetime, an' raise nothing but a family of farmers! A fine thing!"

"They will be farmers anyhow," cried Jim, "in spite of your efforts--ninety out of every hundred of them! And of the other ten, nine will be wage-earners in the cities, and wish to G.o.d they were back on the farm; and the hundredth one will succeed in the city. Shall we educate the ninety-and-nine to fail, that the hundredth, instead of enriching the rural life with his talents, may steal them away to make the city stronger? It is already too strong for us farmers. Shall we drive our best away to make it stronger?"

The guns of Mrs. Bonner and Mrs. Peterson were silenced for a moment, and Mrs. Bronson, after gazing about at the typewriter, the hectograph, the exhibits of weed seeds, the Babc.o.c.k milk tester, and the other unscholastic equipment, pointed to the list of words, and the arithmetic problems on the board.

"Do you get them words from the speller?" she asked.

"No," said he, "we got them from a lesson on seed wheat."

"Did them examples come out of an arithmetic book?" cross-examined she.

"No," said Jim, "we used problems we made ourselves. We were figuring profits and losses on your cows, Mrs. Bronson!"

"Ezra Bronson," said Mrs. Bronson loftily, "don't need any help in telling what's a good cow. He was farming before you was born!"

"Like fun, he don't need help! He's going to dry old Cherry off and fatten her for beef; and he can make more money on the cream by beefing about three more of 'em. The Babc.o.c.k test shows they're just boarding on us without paying their board!"

The delegation of matrons ruffled like a group of startled hens at this interposition, which was Newton Bronson's effective seizing of the opportunity to issue a progress bulletin in the research work on the Bronson dairy herd.

"Newton!" said his mother, "don't interrupt me when I'm talking to the teacher!"

"Well, then," said Newton, "don't tell the teacher that pa knew which cows were good and which were poor. If any one in this district wants to know about their cows they'll have to come to this shop. And I can tell you that it'll pay 'em to come too, if they're going to make anything selling cream. Wait until we get out our reports on the herds, ma!"

The women were rather stampeded by this onslaught of the irregular troops--especially Mrs. Bronson. She was placed in the position of a woman taking a man's wisdom from her ne'er-do-well son for the first time in her life. Like any other mother in this position, she felt a flutter of pride--but it was strongly mingled with a motherly desire to spank him.

The deputation rose, with a unanimous feeling that they had been scored upon.

"Cows!" scoffed Mrs. Peterson. "If we leave you in this yob, Mr. Irwin, our children will know nothing but cows and hens and soils and grains--and where will the culture come in? How will our boys and girls appear when we get fixed so we can move to town? We won't have no culture at all, Yim!"