Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net THE BROWN MOUSE By HERBERT QUICK Author of Aladdin & Company, The Broken Lance On Board the Good Ship Earth, Etc. INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright 1915 The Bobbs-Merrill Company Printed in the United States of America PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOK MANUFACTURERS BROOKLYN, N. Y. CONTENTS CHAPTER I A Maiden's "Humph" 1 II Reversed Unanimity 24 III What Is a Brown Mouse 38 IV The First Day of School 48 V The Promotion of Jennie 55 VI Jim Talks the Weather Cold 65 VII The New Wine 75 VIII And the Old Bottles 89 IX Jennie Arranges a Christmas Party 99 X How Jim Was Lined Up 111 XI The Mouse Escapes 122 XII Facing Trial 132 XIII Fame or Notoriety 147 XIV The Colonel Takes the Field 164 XV A Minor Casts Half a Vote 188 XVI The Glorious Fourth 203 XVII A Trouble Shooter 218 XVIII Jim Goes to Ames 235 XIX Jim's World Widens 242 XX Think of It 248 XXI A School District Held Up 258 XXII An Embassy From Dixie 277 XXIII And So They Lived---- 295 THE BROWN MOUSE CHAPTER I A MAIDEN'S "HUMPH" A Farm-hand nodded in answer to a question asked him by Napoleon on the morning of Waterloo. The nod was false, or the emperor misunderstood--and Waterloo was lost. On the nod of a farm-hand rested the fate of Europe. This story may not be so important as the battle of Waterloo--and it may be. I think that Napoleon was sure to lose to Wellington sooner or later, and therefore the words "fate of Europe" in the last paragraph should be understood as modified by "for a while." But this story may change the world permanently. We will not discuss that, if you please. What I am endeavoring to make plain is that this history would never have been written if a farmer's daughter had not said "Humph!" to her father's hired man. Of course she never said it as it is printed. People never say "Humph!" in that way. She just closed her lips tight in the manner of people who have a great deal to say and prefer not to say it, and--I dislike to record this of a young lady who has been "off to school," but truthfulness compels--she grunted through her little nose the ordinary "Humph!" of conversational commerce, which was accepted at its face value by the farm-hand as an evidence of displeasure, disapproval, and even of contempt. Things then began to happen as they never would have done if the maiden hadn't "Humphed!" and this is a history of those happenings.