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Alone among them was the big and eccentric granddaughter of Mrs Bisnette, who was always slapping some youngster for impertinence. Jed Feary and Squire Town sat together behind a pile of books, both looking very serious. The long hair and beard of the old poet were now white and his form bent with age.
The fame of his verse and his learning had gone far beyond the narrow boundaries of the township in which he lived. It was the biggest thing in the county. Many a poor sinner who had gone out of Faraway to his long home got his first praise in the obituary poem by Jed Feary.
But I must hasten to those events in Faraway that shaped our destinies. And first comes that memorable night when I had the privilege of escorting Hope to the school lyceum where the argument of Jed Feary poet of the hills fired my soul with an ambition that has remained with me always. Uncle Be suggested that I ask Hope to go with me.
I had lain there thinking an hour or more when I caught the jar of approaching footsteps. Looking up I saw Jed Feary coming through the bushes, pole in hand. 'Fishin'? he asked. 'Only thinking, I answered. 'Couldn't be in better business, said he as he sat down beside me. More than once he had been my father confessor and I was glad he had come. 'In love? he asked.
Ann Jane Foster, known as 'Scooter Jane', for her rapid walk and stiff carriage, met us at the corners on her way to the schoolhouse. 'Big turn out I guess, said she. 'Jed Feary 'n' Squire Town is comin' over from Jingleville an' all the big guns'll be there. I love t' hear Jed Feary speak, he's so techin'. Ann Jane was always looking around for some event likely to touch her feelings.
Jed Feary was with us one evening, I remember, when our talk turned into long ways, the end of which I have never found to this day. Elizabeth had been reading of a slave, who, according to the paper, had been whipped to death. 'If God knows 'at such things are bein' done, why don't he stop 'em? David asked. 'Can't very well, said Jed Feary. 'Can, if he's omnipotent, said David.
My mind was always on my books or my last talk with Jed Feary, and she shared my confidence and fed my hopes and shielded me as much as possible from the heavy work. Hope had a better head for mathematics than I, and had always helped me with my sums, but I had a better memory and an aptitude in other things that kept me at the head of most of my classes.
Many a time they had tried to take her from my arm at the church door a good-natured phase of youthful rivalry there in those days but she had always said, laughingly, 'No, thank you, and clung all the closer to me. Now Jed Feary had no knowledge of the worry it gave me, or of the peril it suggested. I knew that, if I felt free to tell him all, he would give me other counsel.
I bent over the shoulder of Jed Feary for a view of the manuscript, closely written with a lead pencil, and marked with many erasures. 'Le's hear it, said David Brower. Then I moved the lamp to his elbow and he began reading: 'A talk with William Brower on the occasion of his going away to college and writ out in rhyme for him by his friend Jedediah Feary to be a token of respect.
Hope had made remarkable progress in music and was soon going to Ogdensburg for instruction. A year had gone, nearly, since Jed Feary had cautioned me about falling in love. I had kept enough of my heart about me 'to do business with', but I had continued to feel an uncomfortable absence in the region of it.
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