with the
selfish baby, Jim knew as well as anybody. And when he was offered
quite as handsome a sum to tell all he knew about it, his reply was to
plant his fist in the eye of the man who had made the offer. Not that
he cared for the cause the babe's coming had disgraced. He only meant
to stand by old Nance, and not all the money in the county's coffers
could have forced his lips to speak that which would hurt her. He was
afterward arrested and brought before the magistrate, together with
Nance, and swore, not by the calendared saints,--he hadn't made their
acquaintance,--but by "George," by "Gum," by "Gosh," and even by God
himself that he knew nothing at all about the matter. They knew he was
lying, but there was no way to prove it, as he attempted no dodge. He
was merely ignorant. Nance hadn't asked him to do this; she knew he
would do it if necessary. She had not attempted to win his love, his
confidence, or his gratitude. Perhaps she believed, in her blind way,
that these things are born, not won, like respect, and honor, and
admiration. He was fifteen when this happened. At sixteen Nance died
from the effects of a blow from a policeman's club while trying to
arrest her. Two weeks later the policeman died from the effects of a
blow from Jim's club while trying to protect old Nance. Two months
later the prison door closed on Jim, and the town took breath again in
a long, relieved sigh of "_Safe at last!_" As if vagabond Jim's
salvation had lain a weight for sixteen years upon their consciences.

It was certainly the face of a hardened creature that followed the
sheriff to the railroad station that June morning. June, sweet, old
love-laden, rose-burdened June. Of all the year to give up one's
freedom in June. And how many years before he would breathe the free,
rose-haunted air of another June. Twenty. Why, the twentieth century
would be dawning before he would be free again. Would his face be any
the less hard at the expiration of his term? _The penitentiary isn't a
hotbed of virtue_, and Jim wasn't wax. Nobody wasted any hopes on
him,--except the lessees, who, finding him able-bodied, young, and
healthy, sent him to the Branch prison to dig coal.

There an old gray-bearded warden offered a plea for his youth, and a
protest against the associations of the Branch, and was promptly
reminded that the Tennessee State prison was not a reformatory
institute, but that it had been leased as a financial speculation,
which