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Long Jim
by
II
One morning at daybreak I was awakened by Jim swinging back my door. He had on his heavy overcoat and carried a lantern. His slouch hat was flattened on the back of his head; the rim flared out, framing his face, which was wreathed in smiles. He seemed to be under some peculiar excitement, for his breath came thick and fast.
“Sorry to wake ye, but I’m goin’ to Plymouth,” and he lowered his head and stepped inside my room. “Ruby’s comin’. Feller brought me a letter she’d sent on by the stage. The driver left it at the sawmill. I’d ‘a’ told ye las’ night, but ye’d turned in.”
“When will you be back?” I called out from between the bedclothes. We had planned a trip to the Knob the next day, and were to camp out for the night. He evidently saw my disappointment in my face, for he answered quickly, as he bent over me:
“Oh, to-night, sure; and maybe Ruby’ll go along. There ain’t nothin’ ye kin teach her ’bout campin’, and she’ll go anywheres I’ll take her–leastways, she allus has.” This last was said with some hesitation, as if he had suddenly thought that my presence might make some difference to her. “Leave yer brushes where I kin git ’em,” he continued, anxious to make up for my disappointment. “I’ll wash ’em when I git back,” and he clattered down the steep stairs and slammed the door behind him.
I jumped from my bed, threw up the narrow, unpainted sash and watched his tall, awkward figure swinging the lantern as he hurried away toward the shed where the gray mare lived in solitude. Then I crept back to bed again to plan my day anew.
When I joined Marvin at breakfast I found him in one of his ugliest moods, with all his bristles out; not turned toward me, nor even toward his wife, but toward the world in general. Strange to say, he made no allusion to his daughter’s return nor to Jim’s absence.
Suddenly his wife blurted out, as if she could restrain her joy no longer:
“You ain’t never seen Ruby. She’s comin’ tonight. Jim’s gone for her. The head teacher’s sick and some o’ the girls has got a holiday.”
“Yes,” I answered, quietly; “Jim told me.”
“Oh, he did!” And she put down her cup and leaned across the table. “Well, I’m awful glad she’s comin’, just so ye kin see her. Ye won’t never forgit her when ye do. She’s got six months more, then she’s comin’ home for a spell until she goes teachin’,” and a look of exultant pride and joy of which I had never believed her capable came into her eyes.
Marvin turned his head and in a half-angry way said:
“It’s ’bout time. Little good ye’ve had o’ her for the last four years with yer fool notions ’bout eddication.” And he put on his hat and went out.
“How old is your daughter?” I asked, more to soften the effect of Marvin’s brutal remark than anything else.
“She’s seventeen, I guess, but she’s big for her age.”
The announcement came as a surprise. I had supposed from the way Jim had always spoken of her that she was a child of twelve. The possibilities of her camping out became all the more remote.
“And has she been away from you long this time?”
“‘Bout four months. I didn’t ‘spect her to come till Christmas, till she wrote Jim to come for her. He allus fetches her. They’ll be ‘long ’bout dark.”
I instantly determined to extend the heartiest of welcomes to this little daughter, not alone because of the mother and Jim, but because the home-coming of a young girl had always appealed to me as one of the most satisfying of all family events. My memory instinctively went back to the return of my own little bird, and of the many marvellous preparations begun weeks before in honor of the event. I saw again in my mind the wondrous curtains, stiff and starched, hung at the windows and about the high posts of the quaint bedstead that had sheltered her from childhood; I remembered the special bakings and brewings and the innumerable bundles, big and little, that were tucked away under secretive sofas and the thousand other surprises that hung upon her coming. This little wood-pigeon should have my best attention, however simple and plain might be her plumage.