IN WHICH JIM AND MIKE CONLIN PASS THROUGH A GREAT TRIAL AND COME OUT
VICTORIOUS.
"There, Turk, there they be!" said Jim to his dog, pointing to his
passengers, as he stood caressing him, with one foot on the land and the
other holding the boat to the shore. "There's the little chap that I've
brung to play with ye, an' there's the sick man that we've got to take
care on. Now don't ye make no row."
Turk looked up into his master's face, then surveyed the new comers with
a wag of his tail that had all the force of a welcome, and, when Harry
leaped on shore, he smelt him over, licked his hand, and accepted him as
a satisfactory companion.
Jim towed his boat around a point into a little cove where there was a
beach, and then drew it by a long, strong pull entirely out of the
water. Lifting Benedict and carrying him to his own cabin, he left him
in charge of Harry and the dog, while he went to make his bed in "Number
Ten." His arrangements completed, he transferred his patient to the
quarters prepared for him, where, upheld and pillowed by the sweetest
couch that weary body ever rested upon, he sank into slumber.
Harry and the dog became inseparable companions at once; and as it was
necessary for Jim to watch with Benedict during the night, he had no
difficulty in inducing the new friends to occupy his cabin together. The
dog understood his responsibility and the lad accepted his protector;
and when both had been bountifully fed they went to sleep side by side.
It was, however, a troubled night at Number Ten. The patient's
imagination had been excited, his frame had undergone a great fatigue,
and the fresh air, no less than the rain that had found its way to his
person through all his wrappings, on the previous night, had produced a
powerful impression upon his nervous system. It was not strange that the
morning found Jim unrefreshed, and his patient in a high, delirious
fever.
"Now's the time," said Jim to himself, "when a feller wants some sort o'
religion or a woman; an' I hain't got nothin' but a big dog an' a little
boy, an' no doctor nearer 'n forty mile."
Poor Jim! He did not know that the shock to which he had subjected the
enfeebled lunatic was precisely what was needed to rouse every effort of
nature to effect a cure. He could not measure the influence of the
subtle earth-currents that breathed over him. He did not know that there
was better medicine in the pure air, in the balsamic bed, in the broad
stillness, in the nourishing food and the careful nursing, than in all
the drugs of the world. He did not know that, in order to reach the
convalescence for which he so ardently longed, his patient must go down
to the very basis of his life, and begin and build up anew; that in
changing from an old and worn-out existence to a fresh and healthy one,
there must come a point between the two conditions where there would
seem to be no life, and where death would appear to be the only natural
determination. He was burdened with his responsibility; and only the
consciousness that his motives were pure and his patient no more
hopeless in his hands than in those from which he had rescued him,
strengthened his equanimity and sustained his courage.
As the sun rose, Benedict fell into an uneasy slumber, and, while Jim
watched his heavy breathing, the door was noiselessly opened, and Harry
and the dog looked in. The hungry look of the lad summoned Jim to new
duties, and leaving Harry to watch his father, he went off to prepare a
breakfast for his family.
All that day and all the following night Jim's time was so occupied in
feeding the well and administering to the sick, that his own
sleeplessness began to tell upon him. He who had been accustomed to the
sleep of a healthy and active man began to look haggard, and to long for
the assistance of a trusty hand. It was with a great, irrepressible
shout of gratification that, at the close of the second day, he detected
the form of Mike Conlin walking up the path by the side of the river,
with a snug pack of provisions upon his back.
Jim pushed his boat from the shore, and ferried Mike over to his cabin.
The Irishman had reached the landing ten miles below to learn that the
birch canoe in which he had expected to ascend the river had either been
stolen or washed away. He was, therefore, obliged to take the old
"tote-road" worn in former years by the lumbermen, at the side of the
river, and to reach Jim's camp on foot. He was very tired, but the
warmth of his welcome brought a merry twinkle to his eyes and the ready
blarney to his tongue.
"Och! divil a bit wud ye be glad to see Mike Conlin if ye knowed he'd
come to arrist ye. Jim, ye're me prisoner. Ye've been stalin a pauper--a
pair iv 'em, faith--an' ye must answer fur it wid yer life to owld
Belcher. Come along wid me. None o' yer nonsinse, or I'll put a windy in
ye."
Jim eyed him with a smile, but he knew that no ordinary errand had
brought Mike to him so quickly.
"Old Belcher sent ye, did he?" said Jim.
"Be gorry he did, an' I've come to git a reward. Now, if ye'll be
dacint, ye shall have part of it."
Although Jim saw that Mike was apparently in sport, he knew that the
offer of a cash reward for his own betrayal was indeed a sore temptation
to him.
"Did ye tell 'im anything, Mike?" inquired Jim, solemnly.
"Divil a bit."
"An' ye knowed I'd lick ye if ye did. Ye knowed that, didn't ye?"
"I knowed ye'd thry it faithful, an' if ye didn't do it there'd be
niver a man to blame but Mike Conlin."
Jim said no more, but went to work and got a bountiful supper for Mike.
When he had finished, he took him over to Number Ten, where Harry and
Turk were watching. Quietly opening the door of the cabin, he entered.
Benedict lay on his bed, his rapt eyes looking up to the roof. His
clean-cut, deathly face, his long, tangled locks, and the comfortable
appointments about him, were all scanned by Mike, and, without saying a
word, both turned and retired.
"Mike," said Jim, as they retraced their way, "that man an' me was like
brothers. I found 'im in the devil's own hole, an' any man as comes
atween me an' him must look out fur 'imself forever arter. Jim Fenton's
a good-natered man when he ain't riled, but he'd sooner fight nor eat
when he is. Will ye help me, or won't ye?"
Mike made no reply, but opened his pack and brought out a tumbler of
jelly. "There, ye bloody blaggard, wouldn't ye be afther lickin' that
now?" said he; and then, as he proceeded to unload the pack, his tongue
ran on in comment. (A paper of crackers.) "Mash 'em all to smithereens
now. Give it to 'em, Jim." (A roasted chicken.) "Pitch intil the
rooster, Jim. Crack every bone in 'is body." (A bottle of brandy.)
"Knock the head aff his shoolders and suck 'is blood." (A package of
tea.) "Down with the tay! It's insulted ye, Jim." (A piece of maple
sugar.) "Och! the owld, brown rascal! ye'll be afther doin Jim Fenton a
bad turn, will ye? Ye'll be brakin 'is teeth fur 'im." Then followed a
plate, cup and saucer, and these were supplemented by an old shirt and
various knick-knacks that only a woman would remember in trying to
provide for an invalid far away from the conveniences and comforts of
home.
Jim watched Mike with tearful eyes, which grew more and more loaded and
luminous as the disgorgement of the contents of the pack progressed.
"Mike, will ye forgive me?" said Jim, stretching out his hand. "I was
afeared the money'd be too many for ye; but barrin' yer big foot an' the
ugly nose that's on ye, ye're an angel."
"Niver ye mind me fut," responded Mike. "Me inimies don't like it, an'
they can give a good raison fur it; an' as fur me nose, it'll look
worser nor it does now when Jim Fenton gets a crack at it."
"Mike," said Jim, "ye hurt me. Here's my hand, an' honors are easy."
Mike took the hand without more ado, and then sat back and told Jim all
about it.
"Ye see, afther ye wint away that night I jist lay down an' got a bit iv
a shnooze, an' in the mornin' I shtarted for me owld horse. It was a big
thramp to where ye lift him, and comin' back purty slow, I picked up a
few shticks and put intil the wagin for me owld woman--pine knots an'
the like o' that. I didn't git home much afore darruk, and me owld horse
wasn't more nor in the shtable an' I 'atin' me supper, quiet like, afore
Belcher druv up to me house wid his purty man on the seat wid 'im. An'
says he: 'Mike Conlin! Mike Conlin! Come to the dour wid ye!' So I wint
to the dour, an' he says, says he: 'Hev ye seen a crazy old feller wid a
b'y?' An' says I: 'There's no crazy owld feller wid a b'y been by me
house in the daytime. If they wint by at all at all, it was when me
family was aslape.' Then he got out of his wagin and come in, and he
looked 'round in all the corners careless like, and thin he said he
wanted to go to the barrun. So we wint to the barrun, and he looked all
about purty careful, and he says, says he: 'What ye been doin' wid the
owld horse on a Sunday, Mike?' And says I to him, says I: 'Jist a
pickin' up a few shticks for the owld woman.' An' when he come out he
see the shticks in the wagin, and he says, says he: 'Mike, if ye'll find
these fellers in the woods I'll give ye five hundred dollars.' And says
I: 'Squire Belcher,' says I (for I knowed he had a wake shpot in 'im),
'ye are richer nor a king, and Mike Conlin's no betther nor a pauper
himself. Give me a hundred dollars,' says I, 'an' I'll thry it. And be
gorry I've got it right there' (slapping his pocket.) 'Take along
somethin' for 'em to ate,' says he, 'and faith I've done that same and
found me min; an' now I'll stay wid ye fur a week an' 'arn me hundred
dollars."
The week that Mike promised Jim was like a lifetime. To have some one
with him to share his vigils and his responsibility lifted a great
burden from his shoulders. But the sick man grew weaker and weaker every
day. He was assiduously nursed and literally fed with dainties; but the
two men went about their duties with solemn faces, and talked almost in
a whisper. Occasionally one of them went out for delicate game, and by
alternate watches they managed to get sufficient sleep to recruit their
exhausted energies.
One morning, after Mike had been there four or five days, both stood by
Benedict's bed, and felt that a crisis was upon him. A great uneasiness
had possessed him for some hours, and then he had sunk away into a
stupor or a sleep, they could not determine which.
The two men watched him for a while, and then went out and sat down on a
log in front of the cabin, and held a consultation.
"Mike," said Jim, "somethin' must be did. We've did our best an' nothin'
comes on't; an' Benedict is nearer Abram's bosom nor I ever meant he
should come in my time. I ain't no doctor; you ain't no doctor. We've
nussed 'im the best we knowed, but I guess he's a goner. It's too
thunderin' bad, for I'd set my heart on puttin' 'im through."
"Well," said Mike, "I've got me hundred dollars, and you'll git yer pay
in the nixt wurruld."
"I don't want no pay," responded Jim. "An' what do ye know about the
next world, anyway?"
"The praste says there is one," said Mike.
"The priest be hanged! What does he know about it?"
"That's his business," said Mike. "It's not for the like o' me to answer
for the praste."
"Well, I wish he was here, in Number Nine, an' we'd see what we could
git out of 'im. I've got to the eend o' my rope."
The truth was that Jim was becoming religious. When his own strong right
hand failed in any enterprise, he always came to a point where the
possibilities of a superior wisdom and power dawned upon him. He had
never offered a prayer in his life, but the wish for some medium or
instrument of intercession was strong within him. At last an idea struck
him, and he turned to Mike and told him to go down to his old cabin, and
stay there while he sent the boy back to him.
When Harry came up, with an anxious face, Jim took him between his
knees.
"Little feller," said he, "I need comfortin'. It's a comfort to have ye
here in my arms, an' I don't never want to have you go 'way from me.
Your pa is awful sick, and perhaps he ain't never goin' to be no better.
The rain and the ride, I'm afeared, was too many fur him; but I've did
the best I could, and I meant well to both on ye, an' now I can't do no
more, and there ain't no doctor here, an' there ain't no minister. Ye've
allers been a pretty good boy, hain't ye? And don't ye s'pose ye can go
out here a little ways behind a tree and pray? I'll hold on to the dog;
an' it seems to me, if I was the Lord, I sh'd pay 'tention to what a
little feller like you was sayin'. There ain't nobody here but you to do
it now, ye know. I can nuss your pa and fix his vittles, and set up with
'im nights, but I can't pray. I wasn't brung up to it. Now, if ye'll do
this, I won't ax ye to do nothin' else."
The boy was serious. He looked off with his great black eyes into the
woods. He had said his prayers many times when he did not know that he
wanted anything. Here was a great emergency, the most terrible that he
had ever encountered. He, a child, was the only one who could pray for
the life of his father; and the thought of the responsibility, though it
was only dimly entertained, or imperfectly grasped, overwhelmed him. His
eyes, that had been strained so long, filled with tears, and, bursting
into a fit of uncontrollable weeping, he threw his arms around Jim's
neck, where he sobbed away his sudden and almost hysterical passion.
Then he gently disengaged himself and went away.
Jim took off his cap, and holding fast his uneasy and inquiring dog,
bowed his head as if he were in a church. Soon, among the songs of birds
that were turning the morning into music, and the flash of waves that
ran shoreward before the breeze, and the whisper of the wind among the
evergreens, there came to his ear the voice of a child, pleading for his
father's life. The tears dropped from his eyes and rolled down upon his
beard. There was an element of romantic superstition in the man, of
which his request was the offspring, and to which the sound of the
child's voice appealed with irresistible power.
When the lad reappeared and approached him, Jim said to himself: "Now,
if that won't do it, ther' won't nothin'." Reaching out his arms to
Harry, as he came up, he embraced him, and said:
"My boy, ye've did the right thing. It's better nor all the nussin', an'
ye must do that every mornin'--every mornin'; an' don't ye take no for
an answer. Now jest go in with me an' see your pa."
Jim would not have been greatly surprised to see the rude little room
thronged with angels, but he was astonished, almost to fainting, to see
Benedict open his eyes, look about him, then turn his questioning gaze
upon him, and recognize him by a faint smile, so like the look of other
days--so full of intelligence and peace, that the woodsman dropped upon
his knees and hid his face in the blankets. He did not say a word, but
leaving the boy passionately kissing his father, he ran to his own
cabin.
Seizing Mike by the shoulders, he shook him as if he intended to kill
him.
"Mike," said he, "by the great horned spoons, the little fellow has
fetched 'im! Git yer pa'tridge-broth and yer brandy quicker'n'
lightnin'. Don't talk to me no more 'bout yer priest; I've got a trick
worth two o' that."
Both men made haste back to Number Ten, where they found their patient
quite able to take the nourishment and stimulant they brought, but still
unable to speak. He soon sank into a refreshing slumber, and gave signs
of mending throughout the day. The men who had watched him with such
careful anxiety were full of hope, and gave vent to their lightened
spirits in the chaffing which, in their careless hours, had become
habitual with them. The boy and the dog rejoiced too in sympathy; and if
there had been ten days of storm and gloom, ended by a brilliant
outshining sun, the aspect of the camp could not have been more suddenly
or happily changed.
Two days and nights passed away, and then Mike declared that he must go
home. The patient had spoken, and knew where he was. He only remembered
the past as a dream. First, it was dark and long, and full of horror,
but at length all had become bright; and Jim was made supremely happy to
learn that he had had a vision of the glory toward which he had
pretended to conduct him. Of the fatherly breast he had slept upon, of
the golden streets through which he had walked, of the river of the
water of life, of the shining ones with whom he had strolled in
companionship, of the marvelous city which hath foundations, and the
ineffable beauty of its Maker and Builder, he could not speak in full,
until years had passed away; but out of this lovely dream he had emerged
into natural life.
"He's jest been down to the bottom, and started new." That was the sum
and substance of Jim's philosophy, and it would be hard for science to
supplant it.
"Well," said Jim to Mike, "ye've be'n a godsend. Ye've did more good in
a week nor ye'll do agin if ye live a thousand year. Ye've arned yer
hundred dollars, and ye haven't found no pauper, and ye can tell 'em so.
Paul Benedict ain't no pauper, an' he ain't no crazy man either."
"Be gorry ye're right!" said Mike, who was greatly relieved at finding
his report shaped for him in such a way that he would not be obliged to
tell a falsehood.
"An' thank yer old woman for me," said Jim, "an' tell her she's the
queen of the huckleberry bushes, an' a jewel to the side o' the road she
lives on."
"Divil a bit will I do it," responded Mike. "She'll be so grand I can't
live wid her."
"An' tell her when ye've had yer quarrel," said Jim, "that there'll
allers be a place for her in Number Ten."
They chaffed one another until Mike passed out of sight among the trees;
and Jim, notwithstanding his new society, felt lonelier, as he turned
back to his cabin, than he had ever felt when there was no human being
within twenty miles of him.
The sun of early May had begun to shine brightly, the willows were
growing green by the side of the river, the resinous buds were swelling
daily, and making ready to burst into foliage, the birds returned one
after another from their winter journeyings, and the thrushes filled the
mornings and the evenings alike with their carolings. Spring had come to
the woods again, with words of promise and wings of fulfillment, and
Jim's heart was full of tender gladness. He had gratified his benevolent
impulses, and he found upon his hands that which would tax their
abounding energies. Life had never seemed to him so full of significance
as it did then. He could see what he had been saving money for, and he
felt that out of the service he was rendering to the poor and the
distressed was growing a love for them that gave a new and almost divine
flavor to his existence.
Benedict mended slowly, but he mended daily, and gave promise of the
permanent recovery of a healthy body and a sound mind. It was a happy
day for Jim when, with Harry and the dog bounding before him, and
Benedict leaning on his arm, he walked over to his old cabin, and all
ate together at his own rude table. Jim never encouraged his friend's
questions. He endeavored, by every practical way, to restrain his mind
from wandering into the past, and encouraged him to associate his future
with his present society and surroundings. The stronger the patient
grew, the more willing he became to shut out the past, which, as memory
sometimes--nay, too often--recalled it, was an unbroken history of
trial, disappointment, grief, despair, and dreams of great darkness.
There was one man whom he could never think of without a shudder, and
with that man his possible outside life was inseparably associated. Mr.
Belcher had always been able, by his command of money and his coarse and
despotic will, to compel him into any course or transaction that he
desired. His nature was offensive to Benedict to an extreme degree, and
when in his presence, particularly when he entered it driven by
necessity, he felt shorn of his own manhood. He felt him to be without
conscience, without principle, without humanity, and was sure that it
needed only to be known that the insane pauper had become a sound and
healthy man to make him the subject of a series of persecutions or
persuasions that would wrest from him the rights and values on which the
great proprietor was foully battening. These rights and values he never
intended to surrender, and until he was strong and independent enough to
secure them to himself, he did not care to expose his gentler will to
the machinations of the great scoundrel who had thrived upon his
unrewarded genius.
So, by degrees, he came to look upon the woods as his home. He was there
at peace. His wife had faded out of the world, his life had been a fatal
struggle with the grossest selfishness, he had come out of the shadows
into a new life, and in that life's simple conditions, cared for by
Jim's strong arms, and upheld by his manly and cheerful companionship,
he intended to build safely the structure of his health, and to erect on
the foundation of a useful experience a better life.
In June, Jim did his planting, confined almost entirely to vegetables,
as there was no mill near enough to grind his wheat and corn should he
succeed in growing them. By the time the young plants were ready for
dressing, Benedict could assist Jim for an hour every day; and when the
autumn came, the invalid of Number Ten had become a heavier man than he
ever was before. Through the disguise of rags, the sun-browned features,
the heavy beard, and the generous and almost stalwart figure, his old
and most intimate friends would have failed to recognize the delicate
and attenuated man they had once known. Jim regarded him with great
pride, and almost with awe. He delighted to hear him talk, for he was
full of information and overflowing with suggestion.
"Mr. Benedict," said Jim one day, after they had indulged in one of
their long talks, "do ye s'pose ye can make a house?"
"Anything."
"A raal house, all ship-shape for a woman to live in?"
"Anything."
"With a little stoop, an' a bureau, an' some chairs, an' a frame, like,
fur posies to run up on?"
"Yes, Jim, and a thousand things you never thought of."
Jim did not pursue the conversation further, but went down very deep
into a brown study.
During September, he was in the habit of receiving the visits of
sportsmen, one of whom, a New York lawyer, who bore the name of Balfour,
had come into the woods every year for several successive years. He
became aware that his supplies were running low, and that not only was
it necessary to lay in a winter's stock of flour and pork, but that his
helpless _proteges_ should be supplied with clothing for the coming cold
weather. Benedict had become quite able to take care of himself and his
boy; so one day Jim, having furnished himself with a supply of money
from his long accumulated hoard, went off down the river for a week's
absence.
He had a long consultation with Mike Conlin, who agreed to draw his
lumber to the river whenever he should see fit to begin his enterprise.
He had taken along a list of tools, furnished him by Benedict; and Mike
carried him to Sevenoaks with the purpose of taking back whatever, in
the way of stores, they should purchase. Jim was full of reminiscences
of his night's drive, and pointed out to Mike all the localities of his
great enterprise. Things had undergone a transformation about the
poor-house, and Jim stopped and inquired tenderly for Tom Buffum, and
learned that soon after the escape of Benedict the man had gone off in
an apoplectic fit.
"He was a pertickler friend o' mine," said Jim, smiling in the face of
the new occupant, "an' I'm glad he went off so quick he didn't know
where he was goin'. Left some rocks, didn't he?"
The man having replied to Jim's tender solicitude, that he believed the
family were sufficiently well provided for, the precious pair of
sympathizers went off down the hill.
Jim and Mike had a busy day in Sevenoaks, and at about eight o'clock in
the evening, Miss Keziah Butterworth was surprised in her room by the
announcement that there was a strange man down stairs who desired to see
her. As she entered the parlor of the little house, she saw a tall man
standing upright in the middle of the room, with his fur cap in his
hand, and a huge roll of cloth under his arm.
"Miss Butterworth, how fare ye?" said Jim.
"I remember you," said Miss Butterworth, peering up into his face to
read his features in the dim light. "You are Jim Fenton, whom I met last
spring at the town meeting."
"I knowed you'd remember me. Women allers does. Be'n purty chirk this
summer?"
"Very well, I thank you, sir," and Miss Butterworth dropped a courtesy,
and then, sitting down, she pointed him to a chair.
Jim laid his cap on the floor, placed his roll of cloth upright between
his knees, and, pulling out his bandana handkerchief, wiped his
perspiring face.
"I've brung a little job fur ye," said Jim.
"Oh, I can't do it," said Miss Butterworth at once. "I'm crowded to
death with work. It's a hurrying time of year."
"Yes, I knowed that, but this is a pertickler job."
"Oh, they are all particular jobs," responded Miss Butterworth, shaking
her head.
"But this is a job fur pertickler folks."
"Folks are all alike to me," said Miss Butterworth, sharply.
"These clo'es," said Jim, "are fur a good man an' a little boy. They has
nothin' but rags on 'em, an' won't have till ye make these clo'es. The
man is a pertickler friend o' mine, an' the boy is a cute little chap,
an' he can pray better nor any minister in Sevenoaks. If you knowed what
I know, Miss Butterworth, I don't know but you'd do somethin' that you'd
be ashamed of, an' I don't know but you'd do something that I sh'd be
ashamed of. Strange things has happened, an' if ye want to know what
they be, you must make these clo'es."
Jim had aimed straight at one of the most powerful motives in human
nature, and the woman began to relent, and to talk more as if it were
possible for her to undertake the job.
"It may be," said the tailoress, thinking, and scratching the top of her
head with a hair-pin, "that I _can_ work it in; but I haven't the
measure."
"Well, now, let's see," said Jim, pondering. "Whar is they about such a
man? Don't ye remember a man that used to be here by the name
of--of--Benedict, wasn't it?--a feller about up to my ear--only fleshier
nor he was? An' the little feller--well, he's bigger nor Benedict's
boy--bigger, leastways, nor he was then."
Miss Butterworth rose to her feet, went up to Jim, and looked him
sharply in the eyes.
"Can you tell me anything about Benedict and his boy?"
"All that any feller knows I know," said Jim, "an' I've never telled
nobody in Sevenoaks."
"Jim Fenton, you needn't be afraid of me."
"Oh, I ain't. I like ye better nor any woman I seen."
"But you needn't be afraid to tell me," said Miss Butterworth, blushing.
"An' will ye make the clo'es?"
"Yes, I'll make the clothes, if I make them for nothing, and sit up
nights to do it."
"Give us your hand," said Jim, and he had a woman's hand in his own
almost before he knew it, and his face grew crimson to the roots of his
bushy hair.
Miss Butterworth drew her chair up to his, and in a low tone he told her
the whole long story as only he knew it, and only he could tell it.
"I think you are the noblest man I ever saw," said Miss Butterworth,
trembling with excitement.
"Well, turn about's fa'r play, they say, an' I think you're the most
genuine creetur' I ever seen," responded Jim. "All we want up in the
woods now is a woman, an' I'd sooner have ye thar nor any other."
"Poh! what a spoon you are!" said Miss Butterworth, tossing her head.
"Then there's timber enough in me fur the puttiest kind of a buckle."
"But you're a blockhead--a great, good blockhead. That's just what you
are," said Miss Butterworth, laughing in spite of herself.
"Well, ye can whittle any sort of a head out of a block," said Jim
imperturbably.
"Let's have done with joking," said the tailoress solemnly.
"I hain't been jokin'," said Jim. "I'm in 'arnest. I been thinkin' o' ye
ever sence the town-meetin'. I been kinder livin' on yer looks. I've
dreamt about ye nights; an' when I've be'n helpin' Benedict, I took some
o' my pay, thinkin' I was pleasin' ye. I couldn't help hopin'; an' now,
when I come to ye so, an' tell ye jest how the land lays, ye git
rampageous, or tell me I'm jokin'. 'Twon't be no joke if Jim Fenton goes
away from this house feelin' that the only woman he ever seen as he
thought was wuth a row o' pins feels herself better nor he is."
Miss Butterworth cast down her eyes, and trotted her knees nervously.
She felt that Jim was really in earnest--that he thoroughly respected
her, and that behind his rough exterior there was as true a man as she
had ever seen; but the life to which he would introduce her, the gossip
to which she would be subjected by any intimate connection with him, and
the uprooting of the active social life into which the routine of her
daily labor led her, would be a great hardship. Then there was another
consideration which weighed heavily with her. In her room were the
memorials of an early affection and the disappointment of a life.
"Mr. Fenton," she said, looking up--
"Jest call me Jim."
"Well, Jim--" and Miss Butterworth smiled through tearful eyes--"I must
tell you that I was once engaged to be married."
"Sho! You don't say!"
"Yes, and I had everything ready."
"Now, you don't tell me!"
"Yes, and the only man I ever loved died--died a week before the day we
had set."
"It must have purty near finished ye off."
"Yes, I should have been glad to die myself."
"Well, now, Miss Butterworth, if ye s'pose that Jim Fenton wouldn't
bring that man to life if he could, and go to your weddin' singin'
hallelujer, you must think he's meaner nor a rat. But ye know he's dead,
an' ye never can see him no more. He's a goner, an' ye're all alone, an'
here's a man as'll take care on ye fur him; an' it does seem to me that
if he was a reasonable man he'd feel obleeged for what I'm doin'."
Miss Butterworth could not help smiling at Jim's earnestness and
ingenuity, but his proposition was so sudden and strange, and she had so
long ago given up any thought of marrying, that it was impossible for
her to give him an answer then, unless she should give him the answer
which he deprecated.
"Jim," she said at last, "I believe you are a good man. I believe you
are honorable, and that you mean well toward me; but we have been
brought up very differently, and the life into which you wish to bring
me would be very strange to me. I doubt whether I could be happy in it."
Jim saw that it would not help him to press his suit further at that
time, and recognized the reasonableness of her hesitation. He knew he
was rough and unused to every sort of refinement, but he also knew that
he was truthful, and honorable, and faithful; and with trust in his own
motives and trust in Miss Butterworth's good sense and discretion, he
withheld any further exhibition of his wish to settle the affair on the
spot.
"Well, Miss Butterworth," he said, rising, "ye know yer own business,
but there'll be a house, an' a stoop, an' a bureau, an' a little ladder
for flowers, an' Mike Conlin will draw the lumber, an' Benedict'll put
it together, an' Jim Fenton'll be the busiest and happiest man in a
hundred mile."
As Jim rose, Miss Butterworth also stood up, and looked up into his
face. Jim regarded her with tender admiration.
"Do ye know I take to little things wonderful, if they're only alive?"
said he. "There's Benedict's little boy! I feel 'im fur hours arter I've
had 'im in my arms, jest because he's alive an' little. An' I don't
know--I--I vow, I guess I better go away. Can you git the clo'es made in
two days, so I can take 'em home with me? Can't ye put 'em out round?
I'll pay ye, ye know."
Miss Butterworth thought she could, and on that promise Jim remained in
Sevenoaks.
How he got out of the house he did not remember, but he went away very
much exalted. What he did during those two days it did not matter to
him, so long as he could walk over to Miss Butterworth's each night, and
watch her light from his cover in the trees.
Before the tailoress closed her eyes in sleep that night her brisk and
ready shears had cut the cloth for the two suits at a venture, and in
the morning the work was parceled among her benevolent friends, as a
work of charity whose objects were not to be mentioned.
When Jim called for the clothes, they were done, and there was no money
to be paid for the labor. The statement of the fact embarrassed Jim more
than anything that had occurred in his interviews with the tailoress.
"I sh'll pay ye some time, even if so be that nothin' happens," said he;
"an' if so be that somethin' does happen, it'll be squar' any way. I
don't want no man that I do fur to be beholden to workin' women for
their clo'es."
Jim took the big bundle under his left arm, and, extending his right
hand, he took Miss Butterworth's, and said: "Good-bye, little woman; I
sh'll see ye agin, an' here's hopin'. Don't hurt yerself, and think as
well of me as ye can. I hate to go away an' leave every thing loose
like, but I s'pose I must. Yes, I don't like to go away so"--and Jim
shook his head tenderly--"an' arter I go ye mustn't kick a stone on the
road or scare a bird in the trees, for fear it'll be the heart that Jim
Fenton leaves behind him."
Jim departed, and Miss Butterworth went up to her room, her eyes moist
with the effect of the unconscious poetry of his closing utterance.
It was still early in the evening when Jim reached the hotel, and he had
hardly mounted the steps when the stage drove up, and Mr. Balfour,
encumbered with a gun, all sorts of fishing-tackle and a lad of twelve
years, leaped out. He was on his annual vacation; and with all the
hilarity and heartiness of a boy let loose from school greeted Jim,
whose irresistibly broad smile was full of welcome.
It was quickly arranged that Jim and Mike should go on that night with
their load of stores; that Mr. Balfour and his boy should follow in the
morning with a team to be hired for the occasion, and that Jim, reaching
home first, should return and meet his guests with his boat at the
landing.