Jerry had not been in town twenty-four hours before he found that he was decidedly a “lion,”—an object of general interest and attention. In the house, he could not stir without being followed by Emily and Harriet, who talked, thought, and dreamed of nothing but their wonderful brother Jerry. Their fondness was almost annoying to him. He was the hero, too, of all the town gossip. Everybody in that little community knew Jerry Preston, and his history,—how he grew up an idle and wayward boy, how he ran away to sea, and how he was shipwrecked, and, as everybody supposed, lost. And now almost everybody had heard of his sudden return. The good doctor distributed the news at several distant points, and from these it rapidly spread over all Brookdale. Jerry had several visitors the morning after his return, who came to satisfy themselves that the report was true. With these he chatted away the whole forenoon, relating his marvellous adventures and hair-breadth escapes. It was planting-time, and everybody was busy, otherwise his callers would probably have been more numerous.
Old Mr. Jenkins, who was Mrs. Preston’s man-of-all-work during the absence of her husband, was among the early callers. He lived in a little red house, a quarter of a mile distant, and usually came over every morning to take care of the cattle, and do any work that Mrs. Preston desired. He was in too great a hurry, this morning, to hear or tell any long stories, and seemed only to be thinking how he could turn Jerry’s arrival to some practical account.
“It’s too bad,” he exclaimed; “here are the folks all round got half through planting, and there isn’t a furrow turned in your father’s land, yet. I don’t see where he is. He never staid off so late before. Suppose he’ll be mad, when he gets home and finds nothing’s been done, but I can’t help it. I’ve had just as much as I could do to get my own land ready; I can’t shove off the work as I used to, twenty years ago. Besides, he didn’t say anything to me about ploughing or planting. It’s a great pity, though, to have things left so. I tell you what, Jerry, I don’t know but I might possibly squeeze out half a day for you, although I’m dreadful busy. You get the team ready, and I’ll try to run over, after dinner, and we’ll plough that lot on the side-hill, just beyond the brook, and manure it, and to-morrow you can put the potatoes in yourself. What do you say to that?”
“Perhaps father doesn’t intend to have potatoes there,” suggested Jerry.
“Well, I reckon he’d better have them there than have them nowhere,” replied Mr. Jenkins, not quite pleased with Jerry’s reluctance to accept his kind proposition. “But never mind,” he continued; “it’s nothing to me; I don’t care anything about it; I was only looking out for your father, that’s all;” and he hurried off to his work, without waiting for any further objections from Jerry.
The truth of the matter was, Jerry, with all his good resolutions, was not yet quite ready to go to work. It seemed to him a little too sudden a descent from the sublime to the ridiculous, to put his hands to the plough-tail and the manure-fork on the very day after he had astonished everybody by his return as of one from the dead. It was a little too soon to come down from his eminence as the “lion” of the day. He had rather be receiving congratulations and spinning sea-yarns, just then, than planting potatoes.
Among all the boys of Jerry’s acquaintance, there was no one he was so desirous of seeing as Clinton Davenport. Clinton was only a few months younger than Jerry, and had been his playmate almost from infancy. They were not much alike in disposition or character; but living near together, and there being no other boys of their age in the neighborhood, they became not only intimate, but strongly attached to each other. After dinner, Jerry went in search of Clinton. I have represented them as neighbors, but they lived half a mile apart. This distance, however, was thought nothing of in Brookdale,—there were few neighbors nearer than that. Jerry knew very well he should find Clinton at work somewhere on the farm, and he did. He was dropping corn, and his father was at work in the same field, covering the seed. They both gave Jerry a hearty greeting, and the two boys seemed about equally surprised at the growth and change which each marked in the other.
Clinton dropped his corn and chatted with Jerry until the last hill had received its seed; and then, with his father’s permission, he took a respite, and the two slowly walked off toward the house.
“I suppose you stick to work as closely as ever,” said Jerry.