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JIM BIGGERS
It was a warm day towards the last of May and Uncle Alvin (Parker) was looking down across the fields. He had espied a strangely clad figure of a man slowly picking his way towards the house.
About four times a year, Jim Biggers, a town character and a sort of a mystery man, would pay a visit to our farm. After he had pushed aside his timidness, he would talk very freely. He generally came across the fields from the region of some woodlot. His course was up Black Creek to the woodlot and thence through the meadows to our home. He would come in the spring of the year, with hat bedecked with flowers, some usually pinned in his coat lapel and some carried in his hand.
"Nice flowers," he would say by way of introduction as he greeted us after his slow trip through the meadow where he picked a blossom here and there.
Jim was a town character. How and where he lived was a mystery to the people, Summers would not be hard for him to keep comfortable but winters must have been hard. There were times he would go to certain homes and remain for several days in the coldest weather, but he generally wanted a carefree life, He usually had money and would enter the village stores to make purchases of sweets and other articles he might want to eat. He was a friendly man and food would be offered to him by housewives who felt sorry for him.
People would offer him clothing which he generally would take and quickly put on. There would be times, especially in the fall of the year, when he would be wearing several coats and many pairs of pants. In his pockets there would be all kinds of newspapers. At the post office, the postmaster would hand him uncalled-for news |
