To
non-essentials he kept his eyes shut; to essentials he kept them very
wide open. There were some men of good birth from England and elsewhere
among them, and these mostly understood him first. But they all
understood Sally from the beginning, and after a little they were glad
enough to be permitted to come, on occasion, to the five-roomed little
house near the barracks, and hear her talk, then answer her questions,
and, as men had done at Washington, open out their hearts to her. They
noticed, however, that while she made them barley-water, and all kinds
of soft drinks from citric acid, sarsaparilla and the like, and had one
special drink of her own invention, which she called cream-nectar, no
spirits were to be had. They also noticed that Jim never drank a drop of
liquor, and by and by, one way or another, they got a glimmer of the real
truth, before it became known who he really was or anything of his story.
And the interest in the two, and in Jim's reformation, spread through the
country, while Jim gained reputation as the smartest man in the force.
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