Jim looked it over, saw the other signatures, and felt an impulse to dodge the whole thing. He could not feel that the action of the board was serious. He thought of the platform he had laid down for himself, and was daunted. He thought of the days in the open field, and of the untroubled evenings with his books, and he shrank from the work. Then he thought of Jennie Woodruff's "Humph!"--and he signed! "Move we adjourn," said Peterson. "No 'bjection 't's so ordered!" said Mr. Bronson. The secretary and Jim went out, while the directors waited. "What the Billy--" began Bonner, and finished lamely! "What for did you vote for the dub, Ez?" "I voted for him," replied Bronson, "because he fought for my boy this afternoon. I didn't want it stuck into him too hard. I wanted him to have _one_ vote." "An' I wanted him to have wan vote, too," said Bonner. "I thought mesilf the only dang fool on the board--an' he made a spache that airned wan vote--but f'r the love of hivin, that dub f'r a teacher! What come over you, Haakon--you voted f'r him, too!" "Ay vanted him to have one wote, too," said Peterson. And in this wise, Jim became the teacher in the Woodruff District--all on account of Jennie Woodruff's "Humph!" CHAPTER III WHAT IS A BROWN MOUSE Immediately upon the accidental election of Jim Irwin to the position of teacher of the Woodruff school, he developed habits somewhat like a ghost's or a bandit's. That is, he walked of nights and on rainy days. On fine days, he worked in Colonel Woodruff's fields as of yore. Had he been appointed to a position attached to a salary of fifty thousand dollars a year, he might have spent six months on a preliminary vacation in learning something about his new duties. But Jim's salary was to be three hundred and sixty dollars for nine months' work in the Woodruff school, and he was to find himself--and his mother. Therefore, he had to indulge in his loose habits of night walking and roaming about after hours only, or on holidays and in foul weather. The Simms family, being from the mountings of Tennessee, were rather startled one night, when Jim Irwin, homely, stooped and errandless, silently appeared in their family circle about the front door. They had lived where it was the custom to give a whoop from the big road before one passed through the palin's and up to the house. Otherwise, how was one to know whether the visitor was friend or foe? From force of habit, Old Man Simms started for his gun-rack at Jim's appearance, but the Lincolnian smile and the low slow speech, so much like his own in some respects, ended that part of the matter. Besides, Old Man Simms remembered that none of the Hobdays, whose hostilities somewhat stood in the way of the return of the Simmses to their native hills, could possibly be expected to appear thus in Iowa. "Stranger," said Mr. Simms, after greetings had been exchanged, "you're right welcome, but in my kentry you'd find it dangersome to walk in thisaway."