Jim was sitting near a hall window, ruefully considering the snow through the pane. Jim's tropic blood would shrink from winter, and, as though in sympathy with what were probably his feelings, he crooned in a most dismal vein: “Rain come wet me, sun come dry me, Take keer, white man, don't come nigh me.” “Is that another of those inspirations of Polly Hines of the 'Possum Trot?” I asked. “Why, no, Marse Major,” said Jim, “It's a good ol' Cumberland ditty jes' d'same. Jim sings 'em when he's thinkin' of d'folks in Tennessee. It sort o' he'ps Jim to see 'em. Thar's times when, if Jim sings long enough, d'folks back thar nacherally seems to rise right up befo' Jim.” “Those are surely advantages,” said I, “and if I thought it might bring me such fortune, I would strike up a tune for myself. Since you appear to be in touch with them, tell me what is going on among our people at home.” Jim, with his own color and on a capital made up of a dried snake's head, the smoke-cured cud of a cow, and the several feet of a rabbit--“a graveyard rabbit, cotched in d'dark of d'moon,” was Jim's description--set up, you should understand, for a seer. In a compliant spirit of fun, I was wont to countenance Jim in these weird assumptions. “Tell me what they do in Tennessee,” I repeated. “Jim's afeerd to try, Marse Major,” said Jim, shaking his head as one who distrusts his powers. “You-all can see yourse'f, that camped yere as we-all be, millions an' millions of miles away, tellin' what goes on in Tennessee aint easy. Under d'most fav'ble conditions, it's what Jim would call a long shot an' a limb in d'way. An' you hyar Jim! thar aint been no fav'ble conditions cirklin' round him since ever you turns d'key on that demijohn. Jim aint got over thinkin' you-all acts plumb hasty about that demijohn, Marse Major.” “Well, perhaps I did,” said I, “and so far as a dollar will go”--here I tossed Jim a Mexican--“towards repairing the injury, I am ready to make amends. Meanwhile you are to take this note where you take the flowers.” Jim's confidence in Peg had long ago been established, and he was no more ploughed of those fears which arose to furrow him during our earlier days at the Indian Queen. He promptly took my note--one which employed the General's name--and with it the Mexican coin, and went about his errand. “It's monstrous remark'ble, Marse Major,” said Jim, as he pocketed the silver, “how money does 'liven an' limber a man up. Now that dollar shore makes Jim feel as spry as a gray squirrel; it mos' certainly do!”