"Well!" she would say to Mrs. Brewster, who, toiling over her own cook stove, sometimes wished she had a sprained ankle and could have Jim Popples to do her work; "that man has a real gift, that's sartin'. Give him an egg and an onion, and it does seem as if he could git the flesh-pots of Egypt out of 'em. Jest you step to the cupboard, Mis' Brewster. Thar's a corner I left special for you to taste, a dish o' tomaytoes and rice he cooked for my dinner yesterday. Just them, and a bit o' butter and a scrap of onion, and—thar! Did you ever! Don't that relish good?"

Small wonder that Miss Palmyra grew plump and rosy in spite of the sprained ankle.

Many a housewife wished, like Mrs. Brewster, that she also might profit by Jim's gift; but though he did all kinds of chores for the whole village, he would cook for no one but Miss Palmyra Henshaw. "I steal you hen!" he said to her. "I wish to make you up for zat. I steal hens at no ozer lady."

So Miss Palmyra grew to feel a sort of ownership[Pg 30] of Jim Popples, which was by no means unpleasant; and she sewed on his buttons (for pleasure; he could do it perfectly well himself, as she knew) and mended his clothes; while he, at work with broom or mop, or whittling away at basket-splints, told her wonderful stories of foreign lands, of apes and peacocks, cedars and pomegranates, till the good woman grew to feel that her thief was a very remarkable and very gifted person.

[Pg 30]

So three months slipped away, as fast as months are apt to do; and a day came when the captains sat all together in the Upper House at Bannister's, and Giorgios Aristides Evangelides Paparipopoulos stood before them, as he had stood once before, with his jailer glooming beside him.

The captains had sent for him, and now, at a murmur from the others, Captain Zeno Pye took up the word:

"Wal, Jim, yer three months is up, and I s'pose you're thinkin' about goin'. Me and the captains feel to say to you that you've done well, real well. Of course you started in mean, and stealin' aint right, however you look at it. But you've worked stiddy, and you've worked good; and I reckon you'd have to hunt round consid'able before you found anybody in town who wa'n't real sorry to have ye go. If you felt to stay, I don't doubt but you could get all the[Pg 31] work you wanted, odd-jobbin' round. The seleckmen 'd oughter pay ye somethin' for repairin' the jail, but thar!—that's between you and them. Wal! the steamer comes to-morrer, and I s'pose you'll be movin'. What we want to say is, 

 Prev. P 15/36 next