"You see it was this-away. His mother gave him the Jim, but his friends and neighbors give him the Harbor.
"Jim was always one to take chances, 'specially if some one needed him. Didn't he take a chance—a big one—when he saved me on the ice-pan? But somehow he always pulled thru. Other boats would lie outside and wait but Jim would pull thru the Narrows and tie up and be home afore the others. The others dasn't come into the Harbor, a fear o' the rocks.
"Folks come to say, 'Jim always makes the Harbor.' Then jes' naturally they come to call him Harbor Jim. It's so now that the women folks are always glad if their men can go with Jim, for they feel that then they'll sure come back. Everybody who lives yere loves Harbor Jim."
"I would like to meet Harbor Jim and have a talk with him," I said, when Bob ceased talking and trudged on in silence. "I am sure he has a philosophy worth hearing about and adopting."
"You can meet him all right," replied Bob, "but as for talkin' much with him, I don't know. He isn't very strong on talkin'. He says some folks talk so much, they set their tongue to goin' and go off and leave it runnin' and it does a heap a mischief. Another time he sed to me that he thought most folks would do more if they talked less.
"I remember a year ago a white-washed Yankee was here travelling for some soap concern. He heared about Harbor Jim and wanted me to take him over to his house and introduce him and I did. That Yankee started right in doing all the talkin'. He had a tongue that was balanced and would wag easy. He told Jim he was making a mistake in not having a bigger garden, that he ought to farm more and fish less. He told him what the Dominion needed and when at last he began to get out of breath he turned to Jim and said:
"'What do you think?'
"And Harbor Jim just said kind of slow like and deliberate:
"'Guess you have said it all, sir, but mebbe when everybody goes to farming they will need a little fish to change off from potatoes and cabbage, and I guess I better bid you good day and go fishing.' That was every word Jim said and that Yankee watched him go out of sight and what that Yankee said then want a credit to him nor favorable to the Dominion."