“Who is that young fellow who drove Whitman’s folks up to the block just now?”
“Jim Renfew, his redemptioner.”
“You are such a joker that it’s hard to tell how to take you. Be you joking, or not? The story round our way is, and came pretty straight too, for it came from the tavern-keeper with whom Wilson always puts up, that Wilson took him out of a workhouse and that he’s underwitted.”
“I don’t know what he was took out of, but I know this much, that I was by Whitman’s, saw him holding plough and Whitman driving. I was there again, and came across him chopping in the woods and making the chips fly right smart, and last week I went there after lambs, and saw him ploughing by himself with the horses; and I venture to say there’s not a man of all who run him down can draw so straight a furrow as that fellow drew. I reckon Whitman has just got a treasure in that redemptioner, and I, for one, am glad of it. Jonathan Whitman is a man who is willing that others should live as well as himself, and uses everybody and everything well, from the cattle in his pastures to the hired hands in his field. And his wife is just like him, and so are the whole breed of ‘em; strong enough to tear anybody to pieces and not half try, and wouldn’t hurt a fly except they are provoked out of all reason, then stand from under.”
When the morning service was ended, Mrs. Whitman produced a basket of eatables of which they all partook, after which Mr. Whitman went into the porch.
It was not long before John and Will Edibean came into the pew and were introduced to James. John was about the age, and a great friend, of Peter, and Will of Bertie.
“Come,” said Bert, “let’s go sit in the carriage and talk till meeting begins.”
The boys turned the front seat round, so that they faced each other, and conversed, James putting in a word at times when drawn out by some question from Peter, and while they were thus engaged Sam Dorset sauntered along and shook hands with James.
In the porch Mr. Whitman encountered his neighbor Wood, who after greeting said,—
“Jonathan, you was dead set against having a redemptioner, allers said all you could agin the whole thing; now you’ve got one, how do you like him?”