In towns, even the busiest of them, there is not any too much to talk about. Also, there is always any number of girls and widows sharply on the lookout for bread-winners; and the women easily get the men into the habit of noting and sizing up newly arrived males. No such new arrival, whether promising as a provider or not, escapes searching attention. Certainly there was in young George Helm’s appearance no grace or beauty to detain the professional glance of a husband-seeker with a fancy for romantic ornamentation of the business of matrimony. Certainly also there was in that appearance no suggestion of latent possibilities of luxury-providing. A plain, serious-looking young man with darkish hair and a red beard, with a big loosely jointed body whose legs and arms seemed unduly long. A strong, rather homely face, stern to sadness in repose, flashing unexpectedly into keen appreciation of wit and fun when the chance offered. The big hands were rough from the toil of the fields--so rough that they would remain the hands of the manual laborer to the end. The cheap, smooth frock suit and the not too fresh top hat had the air of being their wearer’s only costume, of having long served in that capacity, of getting the most prudent care because they could not soon be relieved of duty. “He lives in the room my boy Tom made out of the attic last summer,” said Mrs. Beaver, who supported her husband and children by taking in boarders. “And all he brung with him was in a paper shirt box. He wears a celluloid collar and cuffs, and he sponges off his coat and vest and pants every morning before he puts ’em on. So Tom says. He lies awake half the night reading or writing in bed--sometimes when he reads he laughs out loud, so you’d think he had company. And he sings hymns and recites poetry. And, my! how he does eat! Them long legs of his’n is hollow clear down.” There is no doubt about the red beard. Since George Helm has become famous, the legend is that he always had a smooth face. But like most of the legends about him--like that about his astonishing success and astounding marriage--this legend of the smooth face is as falsely inaccurate as most of the stuff that passes for truth about the men of might who have come up from the deep obscurity of the masses. It was a hideous red beard--of the irritating shade of bright red with which brick walls used to be--perhaps in some parts of the world still are--painted in the spring. It grew patchily. In spots it was straight; in other spots, curly. It was so utterly out of harmony with his hair that opinion divided as to which was dyed, and the wonder grew that he did not dye both to some common and endurable shade.