The Brown Mouse

A farm-hand asks whether he might marry the farmer’s daughter. Jennie Woodruff answers with one small “Humph!”—and Herbert Quick hints that the fate of his story, perhaps even the world, turns on it.

On a summer night in early twentieth-century rural America, Jim Irwin sits beneath a basswood tree, still carrying the day’s farm work on his clothes and the hopes of a former sweetheart in his heart. At twenty-eight, he has spent fifteen years as a hired hand, supporting his mother and wondering how a man who loves the soil can build a life on it. Jennie sees no prospects; Jim sees a world that ought to offer more. Her dismissive syllable stings—and sets his thoughts moving toward a different future. Can one insult shake Jim loose from the life that has held him fast?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.