He was ter study,
an' at the same time pick up what work he could, ter turn an honest
penny, the Hadleys said. We liked that in him. He was goin' ter make
somethin' of himself, so's he'd be worthy of Bessie Townsend or any
other girl."
"But't was hard on the Hadleys. Jimmy's lessons cost a lot, an' so did
just livin' there in New York, an' 'course Jimmy couldn't pay fer it
all, though I guess he worked nights an' Sundays ter piece out. Back
home here the Hadleys scrimped an' scrimped till they didn't have half
enough ter eat, an' hardly enough ter cover their nakedness. But they
didn't mind--'t was fer Jimmy. He wrote often, an' told how he was
workin', an' the girl got letters, too; at least, Mis' Hadley said she
did. An' once in a while he'd tell of some picture he'd finished, or
what the teacher said.
"But by an' by the letters didn't come so often. Sam told me about it at
first, an' he said it plagued his wife a lot. He said she thought maybe
Jimmy was gettin' discouraged, specially as he didn't seem ter say much
of anything about his work now. Sam owned up that the letters wan't so
free talkin'; an' that worried him. He was afraid the boy was keepin'
back somethin'. He asked me, kind of sheepish-like, if I s'posed such a
thing could be as that Jimmy had gone wrong, somehow.
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