Page:Saunders - Beautiful Joe, 1893.djvu/219

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BEAUTIFUL JOE.

he waits on the old man as if he was his son, and he is improving the farm that was going to rack and ruin, and I hear he is going to build a new house."

"Harry," exclaimed Miss Laura, "can't you take me to see them."

"Yes, indeed; mother often drives over to take them little things, and we'll go too, sometime. I'd like to see Jacobs myself, now that he is a decent fellow. Strange to say, though he hadn't the best of character, no one has ever suspected him of the robbery, and he's been cunning enough never to say. a word about it. Father says Jacobs is like all the rest of us. There's a mixture of good and evil in him, aud sometimes one predominates and sometimes the other. But we must get on and not talk here all day. Get up, Fleetfoot."

"Where did you say we were going?" asked Miss Laura, as we crossed the bridge over the river.

"A little way back here in the woods," he replied. "There's an Englishman on a small clearing that he calls Penhollow. Father loaned him some money three years ago, and he won't pay either interest or principal."

"I think I've heard of him," said Miss Laura, "Isn't he the man whom the boys call Lord Chesterfield?"

"The same one. He's a queer specimen of a man. Father has always stood up for him. He has a great liking for the English. He says we ought to be as ready to help an Englishman as an American, for we spring from common stock."

"Oh, not Englishmen only," said Miss Laura, warmly; "Chinamen, and Negroes, and everybody. There ought to be a brotherhood of nations, Harry."

"Yes, Miss Enthusiasm, I suppose there ought to be,"