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Updated: May 18, 2025
His eyes retained their same innocent, baby-blue expression and his brain was as clear as a summer sky. One Sunday forenoon, I was busy in the yard taking down my Saturday's washing from the clothes line, when Jake's dog, Mike, came tearing along the back path, making straight for me.
Jake's in the natur' of a blind mule. What I sez is, watch him. Don't look east when he's west. Say," he went on, in a tone of disgust, "you Noo Yorkers make me sick. Ther' ain't nothin' ter hittin' a feller an' makin' him sore. It on'y gives him time to git mad. A gun's handy an' sudden. On'y you need a goodish bore ef you're goin' ter perf'rate the hide of a guy like Jake.
Bringing it to you is the crowning joy of old Jake's life. I wanted him to have that little outing and that happiness before it is too late. You have often heard us talk about how Jake, pretty badly wounded himself, crawled through the reddened grass at Chancellorsville to where your father lay with the bullet in his dear heart, and took the watch from his pocket to keep it from the "Yanks."
Jimmy had less scout work to do and no school to attend; he was too small to help in the sorting of car parts and too valuable to be tossed out. He was in the way. So he was in Jake's office when the mail came. He brought the bundle to Jake's desk and sat on a box, sorting the circulars and catalogs from the first class. Halfway down the pile was a long envelope addressed to Jimmy James.
Johnny slowly withdrew the freckled, warty little hand that had been resting confidingly in Jake's and gently sidled away from him. Jake burst into a loud laugh. "All right, Johnny boy," he said with a hearty slap upon the boy's back, "keep yer head shut ef yer wanter! Only ef anybody else comes bummin' round ye, like this, jest turn him over TO ME, and I'll lift him outer his boots!"
Quimby has come forward, and as the match sends up its last flicker, thrusts the wick against the flame and the candle flares up. It is lighted. Over it they give each other one final appealing stare. There's no help for it now; they must look. Jake's head turned first, then Mrs. Quimby, and then that of the real aggressor. A simultaneous gasp from them all betrays the worst.
"Wouldn't hit be better ter bay'net him?" suggested one of the Rebels, entirely unmoved, as his comrades were, by Jake's piteous pleadings. "Ef we go ter shootin' 'round yere hit'll liekly bring the Yankees right onter us." "I 'spect hit would be better ter take him back a little ways, any way," said the man whom Jake had pursued. "Pick up his gun thar, Eph.
Abe had been to the war and Jake had not, and Lu, as might have been expected from a girl whose father and brother had fallen at White Plains in the Continental uniform, preferred the soldier lover to the other. But not so the widow Nimham, her mother, in whose eyes Jake's slightly better worldly prospects gave him the advantage.
And then, above all the minor, murmuring noises of the night arose another sound, very faint and far off, but unmistakable and unforgetable the deep, long, bell note of a hound upon the trail. The three in the cabin stood like figures turned to stone in the attitude of listening. Jake's teeth chattered audibly.
All day I had been picturing visions of being invited to remain for tea, of my making witty remarks under Jake's mono-syllabic applause, looking over the photo albums and listening in raptures to Miss Grant's playing and singing. And I was sour as old cider as I descended the veranda steps, soaking, as I was, with brine and perspiration.
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