![]() Sometimes the parents of little girls in town, remembering Jim's. He hated his home where four women and one old man prolonged an interminable chatter from summer to summer about what lots the Powell place had originally included and what sorts of flowers would be out next. He became fifteen, went to high school, wore his hair in black snarls, and was afraid of girls. The white house became a boarding–house run by a tight–lipped lady from Macon, whom Jim called Aunt Mamie and detested with all his soul. He had, in fact, thought it a matter of so little moment that when he was dying from a pistol wound got in a brawl he neglected even to tell little Jim, who was five years old and miserably frightened. Originally the dwellers in the white house had owned the ground next door and next door to that and next door to that, but this had been so long ago that even Jim's father, scarcely remembered it. Jim was born in a white house on a green corner, It had four weather–beaten pillars in front and a great amount of lattice–work in the rear that made a cheerful criss–cross background for a flowery sun–drenched lawn. "Jelly–bean" is the name throughout the undissolved Confederacy for one who spends his life conjugating the verb to idle in the first person singular-I am idling, I have idled, I will idle. But Jim was long and thin and bent at the waist from stooping over pool–tables, and he was what might have been known in the indiscriminating North as a corner loafer. It somehow gives me a picture of him with a round, appetizing face and all sort of leaves and vegetables growing out of his cap. I write that again because it has such a pleasant sound-rather like the beginning of a fairy story-as if Jim were nice. The particular Jelly–bean patch which produced the protagonist of this history lies somewhere between the two-a little city of forty thousand that has dozed sleepily for forty thousand years in southern Georgia occasionally stirring in its slumbers and muttering something about a war that took place sometime, somewhere, and that everyone else has forgotten long ago. If you Call a New Orleans man a Jelly–bean he will probably grin and ask you who is taking your girl to the Mardi Gras ball. Now if you call a Memphis man a Jelly–bean he will quite possibly pull a long sinewy rope from his hip pocket and hang you to a convenient telegraph–pole. He was a bred–in–the–bone, dyed–in–the–wool, ninety–nine three–quarters per cent Jelly–bean and he grew lazily all during Jelly–bean season, which is every season, down in the land of the Jelly–beans well below the Mason–Dixon line. Much as I desire to make him an appealing character, I feel that it would be unscrupulous to deceive you on that point. ![]() You should visit Browse Happy and update your internet browser today! The embedded audio player requires a modern internet browser.
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