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"Take him if you like -- take him! take him, I say! Do you hear me? Take him! -- oh, yes, take him -- and -- welcome -- take him!" Mr. Haddock shut the door and left his presence.

"James," said Mr. Haddock, "come with me, -- can you walk?"

"Oh, yes," said the boy.

"Come with us. Good night, folks."

"Good night, sir. Thank ye," said Mag.

"Jims," said Mr. Haddock.

"What, sir?" inquired the boy.

"We have found you a new home."

"Sir?"

"We think of taking you away from the poor-house."

"Sir?"

"We wonder if you wouldn't like to live in a better place?"

"I don't know, sir."

"Suppose Boyce would like to go back there?"

"Sooner go to the grave!" said he.

"Well, would you like to get away?"

"For good and all?"

"Yes, for good and all."

"You know that, sir."

"We are going to take you away from him."

"From the Captain?" The boy stopped for a moment as if rivetted to the earth.

"Yes."

"Will you go and live with me and Mrs. Rodman, my boy?" now interposed the clergyman.

Jims trembled and leaned his hand on Mr. Haddock.

"We have thought of it for some time, James," said he, "and to-day have all made up our minds, if you are willing, that you shall be our boy and live with us. So just tell us if you are willing?"

"If I could be of any use to you, or not be in the way, I should like it dreadfully," said the boy through his tears, hardly daring to believe himself awake. But as they went on and drew nigh the house, and then went in, and the ladies and the children, and old Mr. Warren and George and Eliza gathered round him and shook hands with him and comforted him, while they also could hardly refrain from weeping at the wretched plight he was in, he began to feel that he was not only awake, but that be also bad been liberated from the sunken grave of (New England) pauperism!

That very night Jims, washed, combed, and made of a new thing, his old bat and garments made a bonfire of, Jims no longer, but JAMES by a title to manhood and freedom no one could question, slept away the hours on what to him was a bed of down under the roof of the kind Mr. and Mrs. Rodman.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

"WE should of course miss a Pauper, Mr. Savage, of course!" It is quite a Mathematical certainty that two and two are four; and that if one be taken from four, there are left but three. Now, as Pure Mathematics is a dead certainty, we have no difficulty with it until we yoke to it our Moral Certainties. Then we may say, "Of course, Mr. Savage!" But there's a lingering doubt -- an absence of Demonstration, after all.

The announcement of these things went with great rapidity over the town of Crampton, causing no small amount of excitement every where. There was generally much joy at Jims' good fortune; surprise at the romance of his history, and Mrs. Rodman's relationship; consternation among some who apprehended it an entering wedge to impose on the town a new poor-house system; and in the mind of Captain Bunce the fear of a legal investigation, and a fine for his barbarity.

But Mrs. Polly Tucker was enraged. She became frantic and wild under the excitement, and tore the bandages from her wounded person. She cursed and swore, calling old Mr. Warren "a great, good-for-nothing old hypocrite, fit only for the stake." She "would like an opportunity to burn him up," and believed she should yet find one.

In fact, Polly could not be pacified. The injury done to the memory of her daughter was of such a flagrant description, she could see no relief from it -- no excuse, therefore, would palliate it. She stormed about, cast all her medicines into the fire, refused food, heaped maledictions on everybody, and became a perfect fury. A fever, that left no doubt on the minds of any how it would terminate, now seized her; and in a few days, unlamented, poor Polly's remains went to the grave in one of the poor-house coffins.

The attention of Captain Bunce was now particularly called to his scurvy patients. They had taken the disorder under the generous and plethoric treatment of the Captain, ever since the purchase of Savage's "prime" beef. It proved too much of a good thing -- the last feather that killed the camel. Requiring an entirely new change in diet to restore them and keep them well, the Captain traded away three barrels of the beef, and got in exchange a lot of rusty number three and four mackerel, and some damaged feet and heads of pork, and accused Savage of selling him bad meat! But Mr. Savage knew better than that; the meat was all he recommended it; he only sold it for cheap meat, good enough for the paupers; and any fool might know better than to feed it out every day for two months, even to them. The Captain had the worst of the argument, as well as the worst lot of "prime" beef in town. Moreover, as he apprehended, the article actually fell in value, so that he lost two dollars a hundred on what he traded off. In many respects, the trade with Mr. Savage resulted badly for Captain Bunce.

The snows began to dissolve away towards the last of March and in the first days of April. Many a bank, and even many a pyramid of the flaky substance melted down. It was observed, in an adjoining town, that as the snow settled away on the south side of a long piece of woods near the road, the birds of winter, the crows, and hawks gathered there, cawing and screaming, and diving down towards the earth furiously, and then again sailing away into the atmosphere, fluttered for a while, and then made another sudden and angry descent; or, perched on the topmost branch of an old hemlock tree, peered down into the shade as if to notice some object not entirely concealed from view. And also the dogs in the neighborhood, or that passed by, ran from the woods, howling and moaning, and in the night barked a hideous barking, that kept awake their owners, and led them to speak of it the next day.