Chapter 1

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_Title:_ Jim’s House
_Date of first publication:_ 1926
_Author:_ L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery (1874-1942)
_Date first posted:_ Apr. 15, 2017
_Date last updated:_ Apr. 15, 2017
Faded Page eBook #20170438

This ebook was produced by: Alex White & the online Distributed
Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

Jim’s House
An Absorbing Romance
L. M. Montgomery
Illustrated by Charles Andrew Bryson
First published _People’s Home Journal_, July 1926.

[Illustration: _Margaret’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. It hurt her
to look at Jim’s House, it was so lovely—yet she liked the hurt_]

“Friend Cat,” said Jim Kennedy, “I am going house-hunting to-day.”

Friend Cat, sitting on a stool beside Jim, blinked his topaz eyes a
trifle insolently and then looked bored. He never condescended to get
excited. But Jim was evidently very much excited about something, and
Margaret Irwin gazed at him across the breakfast table with shy,
friendly interest.

She had not seen Jim Kennedy excited about anything in the week she had
been boarding with his sister-in-law. Excitement became him, she
thought. It thrilled his lazy, musical voice with delightful cadences,
and lighted illuminating fires in the depths of his golden-brown eyes.

Margaret Irwin had known Jim only a week, but she felt better acquainted
with him than with any man she had ever met—which is not saying a great
deal, since she seldom met men, and never got really acquainted with
them when she did. It was very pleasant to sit across from Jim at meal
times, listening to his gentle, whimsical talk, and watching him smuggle
tidbits to Friend Cat when Mrs. Kennedy was not looking.

* * * * *

“You’ll have an awful job to find a house,” said Mrs. Kennedy,
placidly. “I don’t know of one in the village either for rent or for
sale, except the big Ormsby house. And you don’t seem to care for that.”

“It is an impossible house,” said Jim, solemnly. “Not because of its
size—but just because of—its impossibility. Miss Irwin, you saw it
yesterday. What was your first impression, if you don’t mind telling
me?”

“I felt,” Margaret said, responding to the challenge in Jim’s eyes, “as
if I wanted to get a broom and sweep off all the gingerbread and
frippery and wooden lace.”

“Exactly! _Any_ sensible woman would feel the same.”

“It’s an elegant house,” said Mrs. Kennedy, a trifle warmly. Her brother
had built it—the matter was slightly personal.

“It _is_ elegant—with all the term implies,” agreed Jim gravely. “Far
too elegant for a humble schoolmaster like me. It would own me, body and
soul. I’d have to carry it with me wherever I went—on my back, like a
snail. I want a house I can love, and that Friend Cat can boss. Oh, I’ll
find one! I don’t know where—but I feel it in my bones, luck’s just
waiting round the corner for me. My house is somewhere, wanting me as
badly as I want it. Come, Friend Cat. We’ll walk up the spruce road and
talk it over.”

* * * * *

Jim went out, flinging a smile back from the door. Friend Cat ambled
after him. Mrs. Kennedy smiled indulgently.

“Jim’s in great spirits this morning. I don’t wonder. He had a letter
from Isabel Bartlett last night. And at last she’s coming home to marry
him. They’ve been engaged five years. _That’s_ why he’s going
house-hunting. I must say I’m glad. Jim has been very patient, but the
long wait has been hard on him. He’s always been crazy about Isabel. And
he’s thirty—it’s time he settled down and had a home of his own. Though
I’ll be sorry enough to lose him. He’s boarded with me ever since I came
here, and a nicer man never lived, odd as he is.

“For he _is_ odd, nobody can deny it. You may have noticed the queer
things he’s always saying. My husband wasn’t a bit like him. You’d never
have thought they were brothers. Still, I’m fond of him, and I’m glad
he’s going to be happy. I’ve been worried for fear Isabel would take up
with some one else and throw him over—and that would break his heart. I
always wondered at her liking him. She’s so pretty and attractive she
could marry most anybody. But Jim was her choice, it seems, and she
hasn’t changed, and I’m thankful for his sake. She’ll make him a
wonderful wife, just the kind he needs.”

* * * * *

Mrs. Kennedy paused for lack of breath, to Margaret’s regret. Jim’s
affairs interested her. She had known he was engaged—Mrs. Kennedy had
told her, and intimated that there was a romance linked up with it.
Margaret loved romance. It had never touched her own life—never would
touch it. She wanted quite greedily to hear all about Jim’s.

“It’s no secret,” Mrs. Kennedy assured her. “Everybody in Glenby knows
about Jim and Isabel. It’s a wonder Jim hasn’t told you—he loves to
talk about her. I never heard of a man so wrapped up in a girl. That’s
why I’ve been worried for fear she wouldn’t come back to him. It began
six years ago. Jim was just through college and had been taken on as
principal in the High School. Isabel had come to live in Glenby then,
with the aunt who brought her up. It was love at first sight with Jim,
and no wonder, for she was the prettiest thing—just seventeen and
slight as a reed, with the loveliest golden hair—_yards_ of it, and big
blue eyes.

* * * * *

“And such a happy little thing—her laugh was _catching_, as Jim said.
Everybody liked Isabel and she had dozens of beaux, but from the first
it was Jim and nobody else. People wondered—Jim was eight years older
and always had been an odd stick. He’s not as handsome as some, but he
has a taking way with him, as you may have noticed.”

Yes, Margaret had noticed it.

“They were engaged, and meant to be married right off. And then the
aunt, Miss Bartlett, got sick, and the doctors told her her lungs were
affected and she must go to Colorado. And she didn’t know what to do.
She couldn’t go alone—and there wasn’t a soul to go with her except
Isabel. Isabel and she were alone in the world, and she was one of the
clinging, dependent sort of women.