Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1893-08-24
aBIG JIM"
BY STERLING KANE.


name, but what had that to do with
the old-fashioned, honest heart that
throbbed so tenderly in bis bosom?
What has the name TO do with the
fragrance of mignonette, or the
yelvety softness of rose petals' If
people with an eye to beauty, or
refinement had met Big Jim in
the highway, they would have
turned to the right to let him pass,
and would have retained no further
impression of him than of any other
giant animal to which the law guar
anteed the right Of way.
Big Jim was an angular, bony
structure, measuring over feet 2
inches, with a motion like windmill
out of gear. HIS legs started from
his body full half foot higher up
than any law of proportion author
lied, and his long arms seemed al
ways vieing with his legs in an awk-
ward effort to reach the ground. His
beard was long and lusterless; his
hair, black compromise between
wool and b-istle, defed brush and
comb as aids to beauty, while his
ears, seemingly dissatisfied with their
connection. stood as far from his un.
shapely head as they could get. Yet,
if one looked searchingly, there was
something in Big Jim's face that was
striking-a radiance that signifed
peculiar gentleness and nobility with
in. 1t redeemed him.
Jeans pants drawn up even with
his breast, and consequent shortage at
the ankles, leather suspenders with
several knots to reduce their length,
q yellow cotton shirt which exposed
his sun-burnt neck and hairy breast,
shoes more familiar with mud and
mire than with brush or blscking,
socks that for thickness and warmth
rivaled any fleece or fur, and that
were worn the same when the mer-
curry was at zero or in the nineties,
all these constituted Jim'S every day
outfit. His Sunday costume was no
less striking of its kind.
There was little in his personal ap-
pearance to warrant the belief that he
would ever be any womans dar-
ling but his mothers, and hers he
surely was. Nobody blamed Mandy
Pucket for thinking such sight of
her son; he was the blessing of her
life. But she knew, and Jim did,
too, all the girls made fun of him,
darted by him at the meeting house
door for fear he'd 60 home with
them, and rode their nags by him In
a gallop rather than have his COM
pany along the road.
Jim hadn't much education, bat in
his drude common sense was phllo-
sopher. He would often say: Let
'em laugh, mother, and marry them
that's pretty and puts on style, but
they'll not get husbands tha'll do a
better part by 'em than Jim Pucket
would. Horse and wiliin' hands,
with true heart, beats beauty all
holler.'
Who worked the little farm faith.
fully, and hired q woman to keep his
old mother from hard work, and
went without Sunday clothes to buy
bright dresses for Sister Sary before
she died, and lowered hats too, and
waited on the big road to thrash the
boys from the log schoolhouse for
teasing Sary, and set up with all the
farmer neighbors when they got sick,
and laid them out when they died,
and helped dig their graves, and
loaned his farm implements for 10
miles around, and was worth FIVE
men ct every hog-killing, and kissed
his mother every night, and said his
prayers at her knee same as when he
was little chap, and never used an
oath worse than 'B'goshtalamity. if
he wasn't Q ChristianT
Why, Big Jim, Mandy Pucket's
son. No wonder she loved and hated
to die and leave himl
One winter night Jim sat looking
into the blazing wood fire, his
thoughts busy with the problems of
life. Suddenly the blue and red
flames dancing over the Goals took on
strange forms. Jim saw q gentle
faced woman in that fire, with little
children clinging to her.
'B'goshtalamityl / wonder what
that meansl' Jim exclaimed. 4 wish
could find woman to have mel
What if mother should diel B'gosh-
talamltyl / wish the Lord
hadn't made me so tarnation uglyl
Who'd expect gal TO sit down to
three meals a day with nothing to
look at but scarecrow?' And jim
sighed.
Jim's mother fell ill. Who nursed
her, gave all her medicine, cooked her
food with his own hands, sat by the
feeble body alone at night, held her
hands, smoothed the gray hair from
her sunken temples, told, her
to be cheerful when she came to
Jordan's dark water and prayed God
to forgive him if ever he had given
her poor heart trouble? And then
the night Mandy Pucket lay in her
coffin. who told the neighbors she was
all he had, and he would rather have
her all to himself and they need not
stay with him2 And who went into
the little parlor where the moonlight
streamed in upon the rag carpet the
dead hands had made and sat beside
her In the awful silence and chafed