“Guess we better call on Mr. Ames then,” says Mark. “Pile into the wagon, f-fellers.”
“What’s the idea?” I asked him.
“’Ain’t g-got that far yet,” says Mark.
That was the way with him. You couldn’t get anything out of him till he was ready to tell you. You could ask questions all day without finding out a thing. So we got into the wagon and drove back the ten miles to town. The driver stopped in front of a big white house.
“This here’s Ames’s place,” says he, “and there’s Jim.”
A fat man was working in the garden. He was not only fat, but tall and wide across the shoulders. The fat was mostly in front and from his chin to his legs he looked just like a whopping-big egg. There was a cane hanging to his suspenders, I noticed.
He turned around to see who was stopping, and after squinting at us a moment through colored glasses he dropped his hoe, reached for his cane, and came hobbling toward us. He was lame. One of his legs—the left one—was stiff at the knee. He leaned on his cane and sort of balanced himself by holding his right hand on his hip. It made him come at you side on.
I was so interested in his gait that I didn’t notice his face till he was close by. Then I guessed I knew why the fellows all called him Jim. He was the sort of man everybody would call Jim even if his name happened to be Methuselah. His face was red—not the way Mark Tidd’s cheeks are red, but red like a box-car. He had three chins in view and I suspected a couple more hidden by his shirt. There was a little scraggly mustache—hardly enough of it to pay him for keeping it, and right above it was a nose. A nose, did I say? It was more like a monument. It was the kind of nose folks call a pug, but this was a grown-up pug. It had got its growth. If county fairs were to give prizes for the biggest pug noses Mr. Ames would have the world’s championship. He had on a little linen cap that looked as if he’d borrowed it from some boy.
“Howdy!” says he, and smiled—no, grinned.
“Howdy, Jim!” says our driver. “Some boarders just come in from the Ravona House.”