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One of them said I was a Abolitionist, and, taking me by the shoulder, he shot me." Gov. Geary was returning to Lecompton, and hearing of what had been done, he called with Judge Cato at Buffum's house, and by the Governor's direction Judge Cato took the dying man's deposition. Gov. Geary was terribly shocked, and said to himself, "I never witnessed a scene that filled me with so much horror." Mr.
Snow rose and acknowledged that it was a long time since he had entered Mr. Buffum's establishment. "I thought so. He has listened to the voice of rumor. Very well. I have to say that I have been there recently, and have walked through the establishment. I know our paupers are not supported in luxury.
"Easily said, my dear," responded Mr. Snow, "but you forget that Mr. Belcher is Buffum's friend, and that it is impossible to carry any measure against him in Sevenoaks. I grant that it ought not to be so. I wish it were otherwise; but we must take things as they air." "To take things as they air," was a cardinal aphorism in Mr. Snow's budget of wisdom.
He had no doubt of his ability to make his way with "the women" who, he was fully aware, had been watching him all the time from the window. To the women of Tom Buffum's household, a visitor was a godsend. Socially, they had lived all their lives in a state of starvation.
He stopped at noon at a settler's lonely house, occupied by Mike Conlin, a friendly Irishman. Jim took the man aside and related his plans. Mike entered at once upon the project with interest and sympathy, and Jim knew that he could trust him wholly. It was arranged that Jim should return to Mike the evening before the proposed descent upon Tom Buffum's establishment, and sleep.
Tom Buffum's "women" were laughing, Jim lifted off his pack, placed his rifle in the corner of the room, and sat down in front of the fire, running on with his easygoing tongue through preposterous stories, and sundry flattering allusions to the beauty and attractiveness of the women to whose hospitalities he had committed himself.
He was afraid of offending Robert Belcher, for not only did his church need repairing, but his salary was in arrears, and the wolf that had chased so many up the long hill to what was popularly known as Tom Buffum's Boarding House he had heard many a night, while his family was sleeping, howling with menace in the distance. Mrs.
"Where is he now?" "He is in the poor-house." "And you, too?" "Yes, sir," and the lad found expression for his distress in another flow of tears. "Well, well, well, well! If that ain't the strangest thing I ever hearn on! Paul Benedict, of Sevenoaks, in Tom Buffum's Boardin'-house!" "Yes, sir, and he's very crazy, too."
The little feller teched me ye know teched my feelins an' I jest sot down to comfort 'im. He telled me his ma was dead, and that his pa was at old Buffum's, as crazy as a loon. Well, I stayed to old Buffum's that night, an' went into the poor-house in the mornin', with the doctor. I seen Benedict thar, an' knowed him. He was a lyin' on the straw, an' he hadn't cloes enough on 'im to put in tea.
Miss Buffum's summing up of Bing's courtesy and affability was shared by every one at my end of the table, although some of them differed as regarded his origin and occupation. "Looks more like an Englishman than a Dane," said the bank clerk; "although I don't know any Danes. But he's a daisy, anyhow, and ought to have his salary raised for being so jolly."
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