JIM DANDY.

When I was last in the South, the gentleman at whose house I was visiting asked a trustworthy old colored man to get him a green boy from the country to be trained as a house servant. In a day or so the old man drove up to the door and put out of his wagon a sturdy-looking lad of fifteen or so, black as the ace of spades, and clad in raiment seemingly made of selections from a rag-bag. With a small bundle in his hand he approached the gallery—that is what a porch in some parts of the South is called—where I was sitting with my host, Mr. Prettyman. The boy took off his hat and made not a bow exactly but an inclination of his head, grinning from ear to ear, and displaying as white and useful a set of teeth as is often seen.

"What is your name?" Mr. Prettyman asked.

"Jim Dandy, sah," the boy answered.

"Whom do you live with?"

"I lives wid Aunty," the boy said, and his manner now showed that he was getting embarrassed, for he did not giggle, but smiled nervously.

"Where does Aunty live?" Mr. Prettyman inquired.

I suspect that this question made Jim Dandy fear that Mr. Prettyman did not have as much sense as a gentleman living in a fine house in town ought to have. He hesitated a moment, and then, moving his head sideways, said, "Aunty, she live over yonder."

This was most indefinite, but it was evidently the best that Jim Dandy could do for the moment, so Mr. Prettyman took him round to the kitchen at the back of the house and put him in charge of the cook, who was also the old housekeeper. And so Jim Dandy was engaged. In the course of an hour he was trying to learn his way about the house and feel comfortable in a suit of blue clothes with many brass buttons. But there was another ordeal for Jim Dandy. When Mrs. Prettyman reached home later in the day she decided that the new "buttons" must be called James. And so he was called on formal occasions, but with the children at least Jim Dandy stuck.

In a few days the new boy began to feel at home, and then set about justifying his worthiness of the distinguished name he had assumed. The first time he was sent down-town he came back in such a hurry that it seemed incredible that he could have done his errand. The next time he staid longer, and the third time—that was after he had been in service a week—he staid half a day. To one of the children he confessed that he had spent all his time in looking in the shop-windows. Hearing this, I felt a sympathy for Jim Dandy, for I waste much of my own time in that same occupation. But the shop-windows of this little Southern city seemed shabby and sorry to me after New York and Paris, and I felt sorry for Jim Dandy that such cheap splendors should make him forget his duty.

The fourth time Jim Dandy was sent into town he was told that he must not loiter on the way, but be back in a hurry. And, sure enough, he did not stay long. In less than an hour he was back. But he was not the smart-looking "buttons" who had started out shortly before. His clothes were muddy, his coat was slit in the back, his cap was gone, and there was blood on one of his cheeks. In appearance he looked sheepish and crestfallen. "Jim Dandy has had a licking," I said to myself, for I felt sure that some of the negro lads in town, envious of his whole clothes, had given the country boy a beating for revenge and for the fun of the thing. To inquiries Jim Dandy could make no intelligible reply. He went to the back of the house and sat on the kitchen steps. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and his great eyes were filled with trouble. Aunt Mandy, the cook, evidently diagnosed Jim Dandy's trouble as I had done, and she was voluble in her abuse of him for not "'tending to his own bizness."

It had not been long, however, before there was an explanation of Jim Dandy's adventure. The Mayor of the town called at Mr. Prettyman's to ask for the boy. As the Mayor was also a magistrate, we were afraid Jim Dandy must have done something very dreadful. This is what the Mayor said Jim had done:

A pony phaeton with four children in it was driving through Main Street. A trolley-car was approaching, and the pony took fright and became unmanageable, backing the phaeton on to the track. Jim was passing on his errand. Seeing the danger, he got behind the phaeton, and pushed it and the pony from the track. He was not so fortunate, for the fender of the car caught him and rolled him over and over in the mud until the car was stopped. This was how Jim Dandy's first suit of livery came to be spoiled. We were proud of Jim, and spoke to him as kindly as possible; but he was rather a sulky youth till his new suit of clothes arrived—a suit paid for, by-the-way, by the Mayor himself, for it was his children that Jim had saved from the trolley-car.

The first freshness had not been worn from Jim's new suit before we all went to a picnic on the banks of the little mountain river that flowed through the town. Jim was told to keep a sharp lookout on the younger children, who were fishing from the bank in shallow water. One of the little girls was a fidgety specimen of humanity, for she could never sit still two minutes at a time. Before she had been fishing ten minutes she fell into the river. The water was very shallow, but the current was swift, and there was surely enough water to drown little Margaret Prettyman, with a-plenty to spare. But Jim Dandy was there, and the child had hardly touched the water before he was in after her and had her in his arms. Not many seconds more had passed before Mrs. Prettyman had the very wet and much-frightened Margaret in her arms, and was weeping over that rescued infant.

Jim Dandy's smartness was again dimmed, and he was a sorry and bedraggled looking darky. Mr. Prettyman looked his "buttons" over carefully, and Jim was evidently embarrassed by the gaze.

"Well, James," his master said, "you are rightly named, for you are a Jim Dandy—every inch a Jim Dandy."

This is what the country boy did to justify his name during the two weeks that I staid at Mr. Prettyman's. It may be that he has gone on and on from adventure to adventure, so that when I hear about them I will have to send the record of them to Mr. Kirk Munroe, so that he may have a biographer worthy of a daring career. When I left I gave some money to little Margaret, to be divided among the servants. She came to the gate just as I was going to the carriage, and said, "Aunt Mandy's obliged, and Hannah's obliged, and Jim Dandy's obliged,' but Jim Dandy's obliged the most, 'cause he stood on his head."