Attorney and client -- Fiction; Legal stories; Short stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
“I’ve half a mind to write to him and discover if it’s he,” Miss
Willis said to herself. “How surprised he would be to receive a postal
card ‘Are you my Jimmy?’” But somehow she refrained. She did not wish
to run the risk of disappointment, though she was sure it was he. She
preferred to wait and to watch him now that she had him under her eye
again. This was an easy thing to do, for Jimmy the mayor became Jimmy
the governor before two years had passed, and one morning Miss Willis
found facing her in the Daily Dispatch a newspaper cut of large
dimensions which set her heart beating as it had not throbbed since
the days of Sir Galahad. It was a portrait of her Jimmy; Jimmy
magnified and grown into a hirsute man, but the same old Jimmy with
the tangled hair, serious brow, and large, pathetic eyes. Miss Willis
laughed and Miss Willis cried, and presently, after she had time to
realize the full meaning of what had happened, she had a vision of
Jimmy in the White House, and herself, a venerable yet hale old woman,
standing beside him in a famous company, and Jimmy was saying before
them all, “I wish to make you acquainted with my dear teacher--the
woman to whom I owe my start in life.” The idea tickled her
imagination, and she said to herself that she would keep the secret
until that happy day arrived. What a delightful secret it was, and how
surprised he would be when she said to him, “I suppose you don’t
recognize me, Jimmy?” Then, perhaps, he would embrace her before
everybody, and the newspapers would have her picture and give the
particulars of her life.
* * * * *
Jimmy was not elected President until four years later, and in the
meantime Miss Willis kept her secret. When he was nominated, and the
details of his career were eagerly sought for, it was announced by the
press that in early life he had attended the Glendale grammar-school,
and the fact was regarded by the authorities as a feather in the
school’s cap, and was commemorated during the campaign by the display
in the exhibition hall of a large picture of the candidate festooned
with an American flag. It was vaguely remembered that he had been
under Miss Willis, among other teachers, but the whole truth was
unknown to anybody, and Marion’s New England conscience shrank from
obtaining glory and sympathy through brag. She hugged her secret, and
bore it with her intact when she took her departure for Washington to
attend the inauguration ceremonies. She did not tell the authorities
where she was going when she asked for a short leave of absence--the
first she had ever requested in all her years of service. She was
setting forth on the spree of her life, and her spirit was jubilant at
the thought of Jimmy’s amazement when he found out who she was.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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