In all the neighborhood there was but one person with whom Jacob
felt completely at ease--but one who never joined in the general
habit of making his name the butt of ridicule or contempt. This
was Mrs. Ann Pardon, the hearty, active wife of Farmer Robert
Pardon, who lived nearly a mile farther down the brook. Jacob had
won her good-will by some neighborly services, something so
trifling, indeed, that the thought of a favor conferred never
entered his mind. Ann Pardon saw that it did not; she detected a
streak of most unconscious goodness under his uncouth, embarrassed
ways, and she determined to cultivate it. No little tact was
required, however, to coax the wild, forlorn creature into so much
confidence as she desired to establish; but tact is a native
quality of the heart no less than a social acquirement, and so she
did the very thing necessary without thinking much about it.
Robert Pardon discovered by and by that Jacob was a steady,
faithful hand in the harvest-field at husking-time, or whenever any
extra labor was required, and Jacob's father made no objection to
his earning a penny in this way; and so he fell into the habit of
spending his Saturday evenings at the Pardon farm-house, at first
to talk over matters of work, and finally because it had become a
welcome relief from his dreary life at home.
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