The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jerome, A Poor Man, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

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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

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JEROME, A 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 leap