Puddleford was a wonderful place for fish-eaters, and the only real harvest the villagers had was the fish-harvest. One half of Puddleford lived on fish, and everybody fished. But our "Jim Buzzard" was a character in fish, and I could never excuse myself if I should pass him over unnoticed.
Where "Jim" was born--who was his father or mother--and whether he actually ever had any, are questions that no mortal man was ever yet able to answer. He appeared one spring morning in Puddleford with the swallows. The first thing seen of him, he was sitting, about sunrise, on an old dry goods' box, at the corner of a street, whistling a variety of lively airs. The crown was dangling from the top of his hat, he was shirtless and unshaved, and his shoes gaped horribly at the public.
"Jim" was a genuine loafer, and loafers, you know, reader, pervade every place, and are always the same. There is a certain class of animals that are said to follow civilization, as sharks follow in the wake of a ship, and generally for the same reason, to pick up what they can find. Rats and loafers belong to this class, and there is no human ingenuity shrewd enough to keep them off: their appearance seems to be a simple fulfilment of a law of nature.
Jim Buzzard was a fisher, too, and nothing but a fisher. He would sit on an old log by the bank of the river, and hold a pole from morning until night. If the fish would bite, very well; if they would not, very well. Ill-luck never roused his wrath, because there was no wrath in him to arouse. He was a true philosopher, and was entirely too lazy to get into a passion. Jim knew that the fish would bite to-morrow, or next day, if they didn't to-day. He was happy, completely so; that is, as completely happy as the world will admit. He didn't envy anybody--not he. All his wants were supplied, and what did he care about the possessions of his neighbors? He never realized any future, here or hereafter. Jim never lay awake nights, thinking about where he would be, or what he should have, next week. He didn't know as there was any next week. He knew the sun rose and set, which was all the time he ever measured at once. Well, as I said, Jim made one of our company.