He also mended up the jail as well as he could, and might be seen patching the walls of his cell, whistling merrily, while the jailer sat by in moody silence watching him. It was generally felt that Sefami Bunt had not done as he ought by his prisoner, and that he really was not fitted for the offices he held of jailer and hog-reeve; but, as Captain Zeno Pye said, "thar warnt nothin' else Sefami could do, and it kep' him off the town, anyway."
But Jim's best work, and his longest hours, were given to Miss Palmyra Henshaw. She had freely forgiven him his theft of the hen, and in the long period of inactivity to which she was now condemned (for if one trifles with a sprained ankle, one is apt to pay for it, and it was a month before she could do more than hobble about with a crutch), she found him an invaluable friend. Morning, noon and night would see him smiling at the door, with his cheery "How you do, Mees Palmyre? So better, is it not? Glad I am!"
Often he brought some little offering: a wooden dish of wild strawberries; a string of fish, gleaming fresh from the water; or it might be half-a-dozen crabs, which would crawl out of his pockets, only to meet a swift death in the kettle of boiling water, and be converted into some wonderful dish. Of Jim's skill in cookery, Miss Palmyra spoke with bated breath.
"Well!" she would say to Mrs. Brewster, who, toiling over her own cook stove, sometimes wished she had a sprained ankle and could have Jim Popples to do her work; "that man has a real gift, that's sartin'. Give him an egg and an onion, and it does seem as if he could git the flesh-pots of Egypt out of 'em. Jest you step to the cupboard, Mis' Brewster. Thar's a corner I left special for you to taste, a dish o' tomaytoes and rice he cooked for my dinner yesterday. Just them, and a bit o' butter and a scrap of onion, and—thar! Did you ever! Don't that relish good?"
Small wonder that Miss Palmyra grew plump and rosy in spite of the sprained ankle.
Many a housewife wished, like Mrs. Brewster, that she also might profit by Jim's gift; but though he did all kinds of chores for the whole village, he would cook for no one but Miss Palmyra Henshaw. "I steal you hen!" he said to her. "I wish to make you up for zat. I steal hens at no ozer lady."
So Miss Palmyra grew to feel a sort of ownership of Jim Popples, which was by no means unpleasant; and she sewed on his buttons (for pleasure; he could do it perfectly well himself, as she knew) and mended his clothes; while he, at work with broom or mop, or whittling away at basket-splints, told her wonderful stories of foreign lands, of apes and peacocks, cedars and pomegranates, till the good woman grew to feel that her thief was a very remarkable and very gifted person.
So three months slipped away, as fast as months are apt to do; and a day came when the captains sat all together in the Upper House at Bannister's, and Giorgios Aristides Evangelides Paparipopoulos stood before them, as he had stood once before, with his jailer glooming beside him.
The captains had sent for him, and now, at a murmur from the others, Captain Zeno Pye took up the word: