University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
IN WHICH JIM FENTON IS INTRODUCED TO THE READER AND
INTRODUCES HIMSELF TO MISS BUTTERWORTH.

Miss Butterworth, while painfully witnessing the defeat
of her hopes from the last seat in the hall, was conscious of
the presence at her side of a very singular-looking personage,
who evidently did not belong in Sevenoaks. He was a woodsman,
who had been attracted to the hall by his desire to witness
the proceedings. His clothes, originally of strong material,
were patched; he held in his hand a fur cap without a
visor; and a rifle leaned on the bench at his side. She had
been attracted to him by his thoroughly good-natured face,
his noble, mascular figure, and certain exclamations that
escaped from his lips during the speeches. Finally, he turned
to her, and with a smile so broad and full that it brought an
answer to her own face, he said: “This 'ere breathin' is worse
nor an old swamp. I'm goin', and good-bye to ye!”

Why this remark, personally addressed to her, did not
offend her, coming as it did from a stranger, she did not
know; but it certainly did not seem impudent. There was
something so simple and strong and manly about him, as he
had sat there by her side, contrasted with the baser and better
dressed men before her, that she took his address as an
honorable courtesy.

When the woodsman went out upon the steps of the town-hall,
to get a breath, he found there such an assembly of boys
as usually gathers in villages on the smallest public occasion.
Squarely before the door stood Mr. Belcher's grays, and in
Mr. Belcher's wagon sat Mr. Belcher's man, Phipps. Phipps

was making the most of his position. He was proud of his
horses, proud of his clothes, proud of the whip he was carelessly
snapping, proud of belonging to Mr. Belcher. The
boys were laughing at his funny remarks, envying him his
proud eminence, and discussing the merits of the horses and
the various points of the attractive establishment.

As the stranger appeared, he looked down upon the boys
with a broad smile, which attracted them at once, and quite
diverted them from their flattering attentions to Phipps—a
fact quickly perceived by the latter, and as quickly revenged
in a way peculiar to himself and the man from whom he had
learned it.

“This is the hippopotamus, gentlemen,” said Phipps,
“fresh from his native woods. He sleeps underneath the
banyan-tree, and lives on the nuts of the hick-o-ree, and pursues
his prey with his tail extended upward and one eye open,
and has been known when excited by hunger to eat small
boys, spitting out their boots with great violence. Keep out
of his way, gentlemen! Keep out of his way, and observe his
wickedness at a distance.”

Phipps's saucy speech was received with a great roar by the
boys, who were surprised to notice that the animal himself
was not only not disturbed, but very much amused by being
shown up as a curiosity.

“Well, you're a new sort of a monkey, any way,” said
the woodsman, after the laugh had subsided. “I never
hearn one talk afore.”

“You never will agian,” retorted Phipps, “if you give
me any more of your lip.”

The woodsman walked quickly toward Phipps, as if he
were about to pull him from his seat.

Phipps saw the motion, started the horses, and was out of
his way in an instant.

The boys shouted in derision, but Phipps did not come
back, and the stranger was the hero. They gathered around
him, asking questions, all of which he good-naturedly answered.

He seemed to be pleased with their society, as if he
were only a big boy himself, and wanted to make the most
of the limited time which his visit to the town afforded
him.

While he was thus standing as the center of an inquisitive
and admiring group, Miss Butterworth came out of the town-hall.
Her eyes were full of tears, and her eloquent face expressed
vexation and distress. The stranger saw the look and
the tears, and, leaving the boys, he approached her without
the slightest awkwardness, and said:

“Has anybody teched ye, mum?”

“Oh, no, sir,” Miss Butterworth answered.

“Has anybody spoke ha'sh to ye?”

“Oh, no, sir;” and Miss Butterworth pressed on, conscious
that in that kind inquiry there breathed as genuine
respect and sympathy as ever had reached her ears in the
voice of a man.

“Because,” said the man, still walking along at her side,
“I'm spilin' to do somethin' for somebody, and I wouldn't
mind thrashin' anybody you'd p'int out.”

“No, you can do nothing for me. Nobody can do anything
in this town for anybody until Robert Belcher is dead,”
said Miss Butterworth.

“Well, I shouldn't like to kill 'im,” responded the man,
“unless it was an accident in the woods—a great ways off—
for a turkey or a hedgehog—and the gun half-cocked.”

The little tailoress smiled through her tears, though she felt
very uneasy at being observed in company and conversation
with the rough-looking stranger. He evidently divined the
thoughts which possessed her, and said, as if only the mention
of his name would make him an acquaintance:

“I'm Jim Fenton. I trap for a livin' up in Number Nine,
and have jest brung in my skins.”

“My name is Butterworth,” she responded mechanically.

“I know'd it,” he replied. “I axed the boys.”

“Good-bye,” he said. “Here's the store, and I must

shoulder my sack and be off. I don't see women much, but
I'm fond of 'em, and they're pretty apt to like me.”

“Good-bye,” said the woman. “I think you're the best
man I've seen to-day;” and then, as if she had said more
than became a modest woman, she added, “and that isn't
saying very much.”

They parted, and Jim Fenton stood perfectly still in the
street and looked at her, until she disappeared around a
corner. “That's what I call a genuine creetur',” he muttered
to himself at last, “a genuine creetur'.”

Then Jim Fenton went into the store, where he had sold
his skins and bought his supplies, and, after exchanging a few
jokes with those who had observed his interview with Miss
Butterworth, he shouldered his sack as he called it, and started
for Number Nine. The sack was a contrivance of his own,
with two pouches which depended, one before and one
behind, from his broad shoulders. Taking his rifle in his
hand, he bade the group that had gathered around him a
hearty good-bye, and started on his way.

The afternoon was not a pleasant one. The air was raw,
and, as the sun went toward its setting, the wind came on to
blow from the north-west. This was just as he would have it.
It gave him breath, and stimulated the vitality that was necessary
to him in the performance of his long task. A tramp
of forty miles was not play, even to him, and this long distance
was to be accomplished before he could reach the boat
that would bear him and his burden into the woods.

He crossed the Branch at its principal bridge, and took the
same path up the hill that Robert Belcher had traveled in the
morning. About half-way up the hill, as he was going on
with the stride of a giant, he saw a little boy at the side of
the road, who had evidently been weeping. He was thinly
and very shabbily clad, and was shivering with cold. The great,
healthy heart within Jim Fenton was touched in an instant.

“Well, bub,” said he, tenderly, “how fare ye? How fare
ye? Eh?”

“I'm pretty well, I thank you, sir,” replied the lad.

“I guess not. You're as blue as a whetstone. You haven't
got as much on you as a picked goose.”

“I can't help it, sir,” and the boy burst into tears.

“Well, well, I didn't mean to trouble you, boy. Here,
take this money, and buy somethin' to make you happy.
Don't tell your dad you've got it. It's yourn.”

The boy made a gesture of rejection, and said: “I don't
wish to take it, sir.”

“Now, that's good! Don't wish to take it! Why, what's
your name? You're a new sort o' boy.”

“My name is Harry Benedict.”

“Harry Benedict? And what's your pa's name?”

“His name is Paul Benedict.”

“Where is he now?”

“He is in the poor-house.”

“And you, too?”

“Yes, sir,” and the lad found expression for his distress in
another flow of tears.

“Well, well, well, well! If that ain't the strangest thing I
ever hearn on! Paul Benedict, of Sevenoaks, in Tom Buffum's
Boardin'-house!”

“Yes, sir, and he's very crazy, too.”

Jim Fenton set his rifle against a rock at the roadside, slowly
lifted off his pack and placed it near the rifle, and then sat
down on a stone and called the boy to him, folding him in
his great warm arms to his warm breast.

“Harry, my boy,” said Jim, “your pa and me was old
friends. We have hunted together, fished together, eat together,
and slept together many's the day and night. He was the best
shot that ever come into the woods. I've seed him hit a deer
at fifty rod many's the time, and he used to bring up the nicest
tackle for fishin', every bit of it made with his own hands.
He was the curisist creetur' I ever seed in my life, and the best;
and I'd do more fur 'im nor fur any livin' live man. Oh, I
tell ye, we used to have high old times. It was wuth livin' a

[ILLUSTRATION]

“Harry, my boy, said Jim, your pa an' me was old friends.”

[Description: 590EAF. Illustration page. Image of a man sitting on a rock with his arms around a young boy. A rifle leans next to the man.]

year in the woods jest to have 'im with me for a fortnight. I
never charged 'im a red cent fur nothin', and I've got some
of his old tackle now that he give me. Him an' me was like
brothers, and he used to talk about religion, and tell me I
ought to shift over, but I never could see 'zactly what I ought
to shift over from, or shift over to; but I let 'im talk, 'cause
he liked to. He used to go out behind the trees nights, and
I hearn him sayin' somethin'—somethin' very low, as I am
talkin' to ye now. Well, he was prayin'; that's the fact
about it, I s'pose; and ye know I felt jest as safe when that
man was round! I don't believe I could a' been drownded
when he was in the woods any more'n if I'd a' been a mink.
An' Paul Benedict is in the poor-house! I vow I don't
'zactly see why the Lord let that man go up the spout; but
perhaps it'll all come out right. Where's your ma, boy?”

Harry gave a great, shuddering gasp, and, answering him
that she was dead, gave himself up to another fit of crying.

“Oh, now don't! now don't!” said Jim tenderly, pressing
the distressed lad still closer to his heart. “Don't ye do
it; it don't do no good. It jest takes the spunk all out o'
ye. Ma's have to die like other folks, or go to the poor-house.
You wouldn't like to have yer ma in the poor-house.
She's all right. God Almighty's bound to take
care o' her. Now, ye jest stop that sort o' thing. She's
better off with him nor she would be with Tom Buffum—any
amount better off. Doesn't Tom Buffum treat your pa well?”

“Oh, no, sir; he doesn't give him enough to eat, and he
doesn't let him have things in his room, because he says he'll
hurt himself, or break them all to pieces, and he doesn't give
him good clothes, nor anything to cover himself up with when
it's cold.”

“Well, boy,” said Jim, his great frame shaking with indignation,
“do ye want to know what I think of Tom Buffum?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It won't do fur me to tell ye, 'cause I'm rough, but if
there's anything awful bad—oh, bad as anything can be, in

Skeezacks—I should say that Tom Buffum was an old
Skeezacks.”

Jim Fenton was feeling his way.

“I should say he was an infernal old Skeezacks. That
isn't very bad, is it?”

“I don't know sir,” replied the boy.

“Well, a d—d rascal; how's that?”

“My father never used such words,” replied the boy.

“That's right, and I take it back. I oughtn't to have said
it, but unless a feller has got some sort o' religion he has a
mighty hard time namin' people in this world. What's that?”

Jim started with the sound in his ear of what seemed to be
a cry of distress.

“That's one of the crazy people. They do it all the time.”

Then Jim thought of the speeches he had heard in the
town-meeting, and recalled the distress of Miss Butterworth,
and the significance of all the scenes he had so recently
witnessed.

“Look 'ere, boy; can ye keep right 'ere,” tapping him
on his breast, “whatsomever I tell ye? Can you keep yer
tongue still?—hope you'll die if ye don't?”

There was something in these questions through which the
intuitions of the lad saw help, both for his father and himself.
Hope strung his little muscles in an instant, his attitude
became alert, and he replied:

“I'll never say anything if they kill me.”

“Well, I'll tell ye what I'm goin' to do. I'm goin' to
stay to the poor-house to-night, if they'll keep me, an' I
guess they will; and I'm goin' to see yer pa too, and somehow
you and he must be got out of this place.”

The boy threw his arms around Jim's neck, and kissed him
passionately, again and again, without the power, apparently,
to give any other expression to his emotions.

“Oh, God! don't, boy! That's a sort o' thing I can't
stand. I ain't used to it.”

Jim paused, as if to realize how sweet it was to hold the

trusting child in his arms, and to be thus caressed, and then
said: “Ye must be mighty keerful, and do just as I bid ye.
If I stay to the poor-house to-night, I shall want to see ye in
the mornin', and I shall want to see ye alone. Now ye
know there's a big stump by the side of the road, half-way up
to the old school-house.”

Harry gave his assent.

“Well. I want ye to be thar, ahead o' me, and then I'll
tell ye jest what I'm a goin' to do, and jest what I want to
have ye do.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now mind, ye mustn't know me when I'm about the
house, and mustn't tell anybody you've seed me, and I mustn't
know you. Now ye leave all the rest to Jim Fenton, yer
pa's old friend. Don't ye begin to feel a little better now?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You can kiss me again, if ye want to. I didn't mean
to choke ye off. That was all in fun, ye know.”

Harry kissed him, and then Jim said: “Now make tracks
for yer old boardin'-house. I'll be along bimeby.”

The boy started upon a brisk run, and Jim still sat upon the
stone watching him until he disappeared somewhere among
the angles of the tumble-down buildings that constituted the
establishment.

“Well, Jim Fenton,” he said to himself, “ye've been
spilin' fur somethin' to do fur somebody. I guess ye've got
it, and not a very small job neither.”

Then he shouldered his pack, took up his rifle, looked up
at the cloudy and blustering sky, and pushed up the hill, still
talking to himself, and saying: “A little boy of about his
haighth and bigness ain't a bad thing to take.”