James Oliver Curwood

“ She has blue eyes—the sort that can light up a dark day, and can make your head turn dizzy when they smile at you. And she’s got the right sort of hair to go with ‘em—red and gold and brown all mixed up, until you can’t tell which is which; the sort that makes you wonder if some big artist hasn’t been painting a picture for you, when you see it out in the sunshine. ”

“ Thomas Jefferson Brown arranged to go back with them on their yacht. The wedding would take place in London, a quiet affair. One day Isobel and her lover came along hand in hand, and Thomas Jefferson Brown said to me:
“Bobby, you’re going to be best man.”
“Not best man,” Lady Isobel added, “but second best, Bobby. There’s only one best man in the world!”
But I haven’t been able to come to the point of this story yet—the remarkable part of it. Two weeks later, when we were up the river and our canoe struck a snag, I discovered that Thomas Jefferson Brown “couldn’t swim a stroke!” ”

“ He saved Thomas Jefferson Brown, all right; but he turned him into plain Thomas Jefferson.
For Thomas Jefferson Brown never got over taking his medicine. He kept on tramping. He got big and broad and happy. Somewhere, perhaps in a barn, he caught a microbe that made him dislike ordinary work. He would set to and help a farmer saw wood all day, just for company and grub; but you couldn’t hire him to go into an office, or settle down to anything steady, for twenty-five dollars a day. He had a scientific name for the thing that was in him—the wanderlust bug, I think he called it ”

“ She comes of a titled family, but she’d want to die to-morrow if Thomas Jefferson Brown didn’t worship her from the tips of her little toes to the top of her pretty head. She thinks he’s a king. And he is—one of those great, big, healthy kings that nature sometimes grows when it has half a chance. ”

“ He could play seven different kinds of instruments without any instruments at all. Did it all with his mouth. And the kids—they went wild over him. In return for his entertainment, Thomas Jefferson wasn’t ashamed to take whatever came to him in the way of odd nickels and dimes. ”

“ Back at the post, Thomas Jefferson Brown took me into his little room, and said:
“Bobby, you’ve found that I can’t swim, and I’m going to trust you with a great secret. Love can accomplish miracles; and love did—out there. For when I let go of the canoe, Bobby, I knew that I was going straight down to my death. But a wonderful thing happened.” He brought a little map from a drawer. “Look at this map, Bobby. ”

“ That was the beginning, and to his honor be it said that Thomas Jefferson Brown never revealed that he was a gentleman born, though his heart was stricken with love at that first sight of Lady Isobel’s lovely face. Lord Meton wanted a man—one who could handle a canoe and shoulder two hundred pounds of duff ”