Jimsy

“ Dorgan took Jimsy in from the street. She—drinks. He—hasn't—a real—home. The minister would like—to—to find one for him."
Jimsy again! He must fling away his chain now or feel it clank.
"That," said Abner Sawyer resentfully, "is of no interest to me."
There was pitiful, hard-wrung bravery in Aunt Judith's face. Only a passionate surge of feeling could have swept away the silence and repression of the years. Only a woman's emotion, wild and maternal for all its starving, inevitable as the law of God, could have leaped a barrier so fixed and unrelenting. ”

“ The Lindon hill was full of watchers. That in itself was disconcerting. Wild spirits gather in the snow on Christmas morning. And it was, of course, like Jimsy to fling himself suddenly upon his sled with a whoop and go flying down the hill through the snow fleet, yelling wildly, but Abner Sawyer wished he had made his début a trifle less conspicuously. For it brought all eyes to Abner Sawyer himself standing stiffly upon the hill-top not quite sure of his ground. ”

“ The Kings were parched for music; they begged for another and another. She had almost to reproduce her recital in Florence. Jimsy listened, rapt and proud, and at the end he said—"Not too tired for one more, Skipper? Our song?"
"Never too tired for that, Jimsy!" She sat down again and struck her stepfather's ringing, rousing chords. Instantly it ceased, there in the room, to be Mexico; it was as if a wind off the sea blew past them. The first verse had them all erect in their chairs. She swung into the second, holding a taut rein on herself:
The sand of the desert is sodden red ”

“ Bell clambered up and speedily confirmed the correctness of
Jimsy's opinion.
"Get everything ready," he ordered; "there's just a chance we can stand them off. If not, we'll have to trust to their mercy."
A clatter of hoofs sounded above the arroyo and the next instant several horsemen appeared. Without knowing just what he was doing Jimsy, who had a rifle in his hands, pulled the trigger. He was amazed to see the giant form of Red Bill totter and reel in the saddle, and fall with a crash to the ground. The next instant horror at the idea that he had killed the man seized on him. ”

“ Up and down the quiet work-shop walked Abner Sawyer, clinging in an agony of humiliation to the loyalty of a little urchin.... It was all he had, he told himself fiercely, all he had! Jimsy alone saw him as he was and liked him.... No heart!... No Christmas tree!... No one in the house to love.... He must prove then to Specks—to Jimsy—to Judith—to the Middletons—to all Lindon—
Turning with hot anger in his heart, he saw a book upon his work-bench; and picking it up, Abner Sawyer faced the pitiful fiasco of Jimsy's Christmas gift. ”

“ Abner Sawyer departed hastily for his lamp, his fire and his paper.
Jimsy followed Aunt Judith to the [Pg 21] kitchen and here, in the shining quiet of an old-fashioned kitchen whose spotless rows of pans and its rocker by the window reflected nothing of first citizenship, the memory-making mystery of child and woman in a homely setting drew taut an age-old chord of sympathy. Out of the hum of the kettle and the fire-shadows of the grate it came, out of the winter wind that rattled the checkerpaned windows—that eternal something that is only given to women to understand. ”

“ Jimsy. Jimsy King—Jimsy—"Wild"—King. What was she going to do? What had she promised Stepper that day on the way to the train? It all came back to her like a scene on the screen—the busy streets—the feel of the wheel in her hands again—Stepper's slow voice—"But, if the worst should be true, if the boy really has gone to pieces, you won't marry him?" And her own words—"No; if Jimsy should be—like his father—I wouldn't marry him, Stepper. There shouldn't be any more 'Wild Kings.'"
That was her promise to her stepfather, her best friend. ”

“ So saying, off he went to sleep again, while Jimsy, overjoyed, hastily peeled a dollar from his "roll" and departed. The last sound he heard was the steady snoring of the garage man.
"Well, there's one fellow that money can't keep awake, even if it does talk," said Jimsy laughingly to himself as, with a cry of triumph, he rejoined the party, waving the plug like a banner or an emblem of victory.
No time was lost in starting the auto up again and they whirled back through Millbrook in a cloud of dust. Passing through the village they retraced their way along the road by which they had come. ”

“ Los Angeles was coming to have such a floating population....
Honor and Jimsy observed the boy from across the street, a slim, modish person. "Gee," said Jimsy, "it must be fierce to be lame!—to have your [Pg 30] body not—not do what you tell it to! I wonder what he does? He can't do anything, can he?" His eyes were deep with honest pity.
"Oh, I suppose he sort of fills in with other things," Honor conceded. "I expect, if people can't do the things that count most, they go in for other things. He seems awfully keen about his two cars." ”

“ The first citizen frowned impatiently. What was it all about, anyway, he wondered hopelessly. Did he want to be one of that yelling, shoving, jostling crowd? Surely not! His dignity rose in revolt at the very thought of it. Did he hunger for Jimsy's supreme gift of adaptability? Why should this fierce [Pg 57] new hunger for one friendly, honest, heart-warming smile of liking and welcome gnaw at his heart?... Why—God help him!—why was he a stranger in his own town?
"The world is all wrong," said Abner Sawyer, a little white; "I am not myself." ”

“ They lived through that rainy season which came a month late, when the green jungle grew over the right-of-way, as it seemed, in a night; and the elephants tore down the telegraph wires, and the fever followed the rain; and the black men grew weary of cutting and carrying fuel, so they sat them down and died. Jimsy was clever at many things; he was given charge of a siding, a telegraph instrument, six account books, and two assistants, of sorts. Loch had no gift but that of handling men, which made him so much more valuable than Jimsy that he was presently put in charge at Gondoko. ”

“ Aunt Judith read in his face an inexorable death-sentence of her hope and rose, trembling.
"You are a hard, cold man!" she said, very white. "And the house is so lonely I hate it!... I hate it!" quivered Aunt Judith with a long shuddering sob; "there's no one to love in it—no one! And everything Specks said to Jimsy was true!"
And then, crying and shaking, she was gone, and Abner Sawyer went with stumbling feet to the privacy of his work-shop, his face death-white. The pompous illusions of his little world were tumbling to ruins about him. ”

“ The Indian, his face impassive, had risen to his feet and now Jimsy cast himself into his arms and insisted on kissing him good-night, clinging all the while to the decanter with its half inch of whisky.
Carter wrenched it away from him. "You'll kill yourself," he said, in cold disgust.
"Well," said his friend, reasonably, "ishn't that the big idea? Wouldn' you razzer drink yourself to death'n die of thirst?"
They were making for the door now in a zigzag course, and when they passed Honor, Jimsy stayed [Pg 213] their progress. ”

“ The brakeman glanced at the first citizen with respect. There was a hissing noise and a jerk. When the train rumbled to a stop again under the startled eyes of Lindon, Abner Sawyer was already striding up the aisle. With the intelligent eyes of the young minister upon him, he snatched Jimsy roughly from the seat, carried him down the aisle—down the steps—and over the platform to Peggy.
"W-what is it, Uncle Ab?" faltered the boy. "Did I—did I forget something?"
Abner Sawyer felt the boy's warm young cheek against his face and a great lump welled up in his throat. Something hot stung his eyes. ”

“ Sounds of battle and vilifying repartee speedily upset the Sawyer breakfast. Abner Sawyer pushed back his chair and strode hastily to the kitchen window. He saw concentric circles of fists and snow and a yapping dog. He could not know that the defensive section of the maelstrom was Specks, the Christmas urchin next door, or that Jimsy and Specks settled every controversy under Heaven in a fashion of their own.
The first citizen flung up the window. ”

“ The first citizen stood in the doorway, the Lindon Evening News in his hand, still unread. Nor could he have explained why, save that a boy's absence may, queerly enough, be as clamorous as his presence. With the biscuit still upon his mind, Abner Sawyer felt impelled to discipline.
"Put the dog out!"
Jimsy stood his ground. He was used to that. And Abner Sawyer wondered with a feeling of intense annoyance what there was about this ragged, noisy child that injected drama into incident. There was a tenseness in the silence of the trio and the cringing dog. ”

“ I came because Jimsy was in trouble, and to-morrow I'm going to him."
His eyes widened and slow, difficult color came into his sharply boned face. "You're going ... to Mexico?"
"Yes; alone."
The color crept up and up until it reached the graying hair, crisply waved, like Jimsy's. "No King woman ever ... held harder ... than that!" he gasped. "You're a good girl, Honor Carmody. They knew ... what to ... ”

“ Honor shook her head. "I don't understand it." She began, oddly, to feel herself enveloped in a fog of depression, of foreboding. Again and again her eyes left the play to rest unhappily on the silent [Pg 65] figure in the purple sweater. Jimsy was playing well; every man on the team was playing well; but they were not gaining. Jimsy King, on whose heels were always the wings of Mercury, could not get up speed in that mud,—a brief flash, no more. She began to bargain with the gods of the gridiron ”

“ Jimsy glanced at the checkerboard window beyond which snowy hills lay beneath a sunset afterglow.
"Gee whiz!" he burst forth. "Ain't the snow white!" [Pg 14]
The first citizen jumped—much as one may jump when he has waited in nerve-racking suspense for a pistol shot. The boy had done exactly what he had expected him to do—broken that sacred ante-prandial hour with the Lindon Evening News which Judith had not broken this twenty years.
"Snow," he said discouragingly, for all he had determined to ignore the remark, "snow is always white." ”

“ The two men were thoroughly cowed, and were trembling violently.
"Don't be hard on us guv'ner," wailed one of them; "we didn't mean no harm."
"No; it was just a little joke," protested Jimsy's prisoner, who was standing in the rays of the detached auto light, thoroughly subdued.
"It's a joke that's liable to cost you dear," commented Mr. Bell. "Jimsy," he added, for by this time recognition and greetings had passed between the mining magnate and Jess and Jimsy, "Jimsy, have you got a bit of rope handy, my boy?" ”

“ Yer face is awful queer." [Pg 45]
"I—I don't know," said the first citizen hoarsely. "I—I think I am. Go to bed, Jimsy, and—thank—you—for the book."
Jimsy went back to bed. He did not know—nor did Aunt Judith or Abner Sawyer that presently he was the sole keeper of the house save Stump snoring in the kitchen. For Abner Sawyer was furtively driving Peggy into a village that knew him only by repute and Aunt Judith, having slipped away in white defiance to Cousin Lemuel's down the road, was driving into Lindon with the surreptitious savings of many years in the old-fashioned pocket of her gown. ”

“ The ram was seated in the aëroplane for all the world as if he was a scientific investigator of some sort. He paid no attention whatever to those who were creeping up on him, Jimsy with his rope in his hand, the loop trailing behind him all ready for action.
"This is more fun than a deer hunt!" declared Roy.
"Than a bull fight, you mean," retorted Jimsy; "this creature gives the best imitation of a wild bull I ever saw."
They all laughed. The ram certainly had given a realistic interpretation of a savage Andalusian fighter.
"Now then," whispered the sheep driver as they drew near. ”

“ He's cost me a lot in damage suits already."
"Why don't you put him on the stage as the boxing ram, or something like that?" inquired Jimsy.
"Might be a good scheme," said the man, as if considering the proposal seriously.
"Mary had a little ram—" laughed Jimsy; who was thereupon told not to be "horrid."
"Why don't you box the nasty thing's ears for riding in our car?" asked Roy of Peggy. ”

“ Aunt Judith saved the day. Arriving in the doorway with a flutter, she said that supper was ready and that James had better wash his face and hands. And James, who was Jimsy, meeting Aunt Judith's gentle eyes, turned scarlet, and stumbling to his feet, he stepped, en route, upon the stately toe of Lindon's pride.
"Gee!" he burst forth contritely. "I'm awful sorry, honest Injun I am. Spoiled yer shine, didn't I? An' it was a beaut, too!"
Could even a first citizen rebuke such eager apology? Better to stay within the certain shelter of a chilling silence. ”

“ Other men might fail and falter, make fools of themselves, seek opportunities for—nonsense, but Jimsy was Old Reliability. I could tell him everything, even my troubles with Julian, I could trust him entirely. Alas!
One day I received this warning from Seraphine: “My beloved Penelope, you are riding for a fall! I have had you in mind constantly since you told me of your new friendship with Mr. R——. I know you [Pg 226] intend to be truly platonic and I can see you smiling as you recall your many years' friendship with Jim Brooks to prove that such a thing is possible. ”