Graham guardian., 1896-01-17
CHAPTER III.

The boy, John HewSon, was by no
means handsome. A shock of light
colored hair that stood up in a most dc
fiant fashion, with small, stecly gray
eye, gave him rather fierce look. His
nose was nondescript, his mouth wide
and filed with regular but rather large
teeth, and his jaw was as square and
resolute as Napoleons. He was not
tallSative or communicative, but was
active, alert, and his extreme quickness
and hardihood gave promise of pow
erful and resolute man.
Uncle Jim did not take to him kindly
at first, mentally CHASING him as ''po'
white trash" but the next morning he
completely captured Uncle Jim's heart.
The old man always prided himself on
having the best mules in the country,
and was very proud of them. As they
were crossing a stream at rather un-
certain sort of ford one of the drivers
allowed his team to get little out of
the right course, and the mules struck q
deep place and there was great peril of
mules and driver drowning. Uncle Jim,
who was standing on the farther bank,
fairly danced with rage and fear, but
could do nothing practical.
John, who was standing by, threw off
his heavy shoes and coat, put his pock-
ct knife between his teeth, and was in
the cold river in moment. He cut the
traces of the drowning mules, seized the
frightened driver by the coat collar with
one hand and mules tail with the 9TH
er, and in a trice mules, driver and John
were at the bank, >
Old Jim had stood In speechless won-'
der. Now, he found vent in words:
"Bress nay soul, de Lord be praised,
sholy thought Mars Henry bout to lose
he two best creeters. You wuthless
nigger, you ought to git drownded, you
allus gittin in trubble and amt wuff
yo salt" j
While Jim was relieving his feelings,
the boy found piece of rope, swan
back to the partially submerged wagon,
fastened one end of the rope to the
tongue and passed the other around
tree on the bank.
Uncle Jim, now waking up to a
sense of the situation, went to work
manfully, and in a few minutes they
had succeeded in getting the wagon 10
bank with no more serious damage
than good wetting of the contents.
Col. Gregory was several hundred
yards in advance, but Janet, putting
her head out, saw that something was
wrong, and raised an outcry, where
at her father looked out and, seeing that
something was really wrong, had the
carriage driven back. When they got
to the ford, the wagon was being
drawn upon solid ground, and John
was standing by dripping wet, with his
eyes glistening from the excitement
and eyertion, but his teeth chatterinp.
The facts came out with strong com
from Uncle Jim ''fur de way
dat boy TUX holt"
The Gregorys naturally felt very
kindly towards the lad for his courage
in saving their property, and were dis
posed to make much of it, but the lad
took it very coolly.
1t required some persuasion to induce
him to do anything, but finally he got
his bundle out OF the wagon, retired in
to the timber wrung the water out OF
his wet trousers, put on dry under
clothing, and was apparently none the
worse for his adventure. Col. Gregory
wanted him to take little dram, but
this he resolutely refused.
While Uncle Jim became great ad-
mirer of Johns, as he expressed it,
speaking to Tony: dat John boy he'd
strength and head jes like n man, an
vuz bout de peartcst boy he lSnowed,
ceptin' he wer sorter mulish like
In two weeks they were on Trinity
river, and as they all liked the appear
ance of the country, negotiations were
put afoot for the purchase of land
which resulted in the Gregorys becom-
ng the owners of several thousand
lcres of choice lands