Jerome, A Poor Man

Jerome, A Poor Man

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Title: Jerome, A Poor Man A Novel
Author: Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Release Date: March 1, 2006 [EBook #17886]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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POOR MAN ***

Produced by Jeff Kaylin and Andrew Sly

Jerome, A Poor Man
A Novel
By Mary E. Wilkins
Author of "Prembroke" "Jane Field" "Madelon" "A Humble Romance"

etc.
Illustrated by A. I. Keller
New York and London Harper & Brothers Publishers 1897

To My Father
Chapter I
One morning in early May, when the wind was cold and the sun hot,
and Jerome about twelve years old, he was in a favorite lurking-place
of his, which nobody but himself knew.
Three fields' width to the northward from the Edwardses' house was a
great rock ledge; on the southern side of it was a famous warm
hiding-place for a boy on a windy spring day. There was a hollow in
the rock for a space as tall as Jerome, and the ledge extended itself
beyond it like a sheltering granite wing to the westward.
The cold northwester blowing from over the lingering Canadian
snow-banks could not touch him, and he had the full benefit of the sun
as it veered imperceptibly south from east. He lay there basking in it
like some little animal which had crawled out from its winter nest.
Before him stretched the fields, all flushed with young green. On the
side of a gentle hill at the left a file of blooming peach-trees looked as
if they were moving down the slope to some imperious march music of
the spring.
In the distance a man was at work with plough and horse. His shouts
came faintly across, like the ever-present notes of labor in all the
harmonies of life. The only habitation in sight was Squire Eben
Merritt's, and of that only the broad slants of shingled roof and gray end
wall of the barn, with a pink spray of peach-trees against it.
Jerome stared out at it all, without a thought concerning it in his brain.
He was actively conscious only of his own existence, which had just

then a wondrously pleasant savor for him. A sweet exhilarating fire
seemed leaping through every vein in his little body. He was drowsy,
and yet more fully awake than he had been all winter. All his pulses
tingled, and his thoughts were overborne by the ecstasy in them.
Jerome had scarcely felt thoroughly warm before, since last summer.
That same little, tight, and threadbare jacket had been his thickest
garment all winter. The wood had been stinted on the hearth, the
coverings on his bed; but now the full privilege of the spring sun was
his, and the blood in this little meagre human plant, chilled and torpid
with the winter's frosts, stirred and flowed like that in any other. Who
could say that the bliss of renewed vitality which the boy felt, as he
rested there in his snug rock, was not identical with that of the
springing grass and the flowering peach-trees? Who could say that he
was more to all intents and purposes, for that minute, than the
rock-honeysuckle opening its red cups on the ledge over his head? He
was conscious of no more memory or forethought.
Presently he shut his eyes, and the sunlight came in a soft rosy glow
through his closed lids. Then it was that a little girl came across the
fields, clambering cautiously over the stone walls, lest she should tear
her gown, stepping softly over the green grass in her little morocco
shoes, and finally stood still in front of the boy sitting with his eyes
closed in the hollow of the rock. Twice she opened her mouth to speak,
then shut it again. At last she gained courage.
"Be you sick, boy?" she inquired, in a sweet, timid voice.
Jerome opened his eyes with a start, and stared at the little quaint figure
standing before him. Lucina wore a short blue woollen gown; below it
her starched white pantalets hung to the tops of her morocco shoes. She
wore also a white tier, and over that a little coat, and over that a little
green cashmere shawl sprinkled with palm leaves, which her mother
had crossed over her bosom and tied at her back for extra warmth.
Lucina's hood was of quilted blue silk, and her smooth