.. and he wore old patches,
hanging there actually in strips ... and, I think, had his trouser-seat
patched, too ... and though he could have afforded a car, he drove
about, he and his family, in a rickety old two-seated rig, deliberately
kept, it seemed, in ill-repair ... and it was such an old ex-plow horse
that dragged it about!
His fellow townsmen laughed, but they liked it. "Jarv's all right! No
nonsense about Jarv, even ef he is one o' them lit'rary fellers!"
To call everybody by the first name--that was the last word in honest,
democratic fellowship.
* * * * *
Whether this exterior appearance of Mackworth was sincere or affected in
him I never could quite tell. I am almost inclined to believe it was not
done for effect,--but out of an Assisian simplicity of heart, as a sign
manual of Bourgeois integrity.
If it was an affectation, his personal attitude toward the people with
whom he came into contact was not ... in his office everybody loved him,
and worked for him with that easy efficiency that comes of good will and
respect....
Unostentatiously and affectionately he went about helping people.
"We've got a wonderful town here ... very little vice, except that which
always will be in every community because it is inherent in human nature
... we have a fine college of our own ... a fine electric plant .
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