Part 32 (1/2)

”Oh, Job is not quite a stranger to my dishes,” returned the deacon, quickly. ”I should be sorry to say that he was; and I should be sorry to have you think so.”

With a smile of suns.h.i.+ne, the old man disclaimed the remotest idea of insinuating such a suspicion.

”A fat dish may be considered a curiosity to a poor man at any time, you know,” he added, with tender humor. ”Even a cold potato and a crust of bread are often great sources of delight, when accompanied with a kind word, and a cheerful, encouraging smile, from the charitable giver.”

Deacon Dustan opened the door, without knocking.

”How are you to-day, Job?” he cried, with his great, strong, energetic lungs.

”Ah! my kind friends!” said Job, rubbing his hands, ”I wish I could run to welcome you; but you will excuse me, and come in.”

He spoke in his usual soft and subdued voice. He was sitting on his bench, with the window looking out upon the west behind him; and his bald pate and prominent ears were clearly defined, with a picturesque effect, upon the crimson background of the fiery sunset clouds.

”We're too many of us, Brother Job,” said the old clergyman, with a smile of sympathetic pleasure: ”perhaps you would not like to see us all in your little shop at once?”

”The more the better, bless you!” rejoined the soldier shoemaker, in a sort of glow; ”only I'm sorry we haven't chairs enough for all of you.”

”Never mind chairs,” observed Father Brighthopes, taking Mrs. Bowen's hand, as she was arranging what available seats there were, with her customary melancholy air. ”And how are you to-day, sister?”

”I'm pretty well for me,” answered the poor woman, in her broken voice.

”But we've been hard pushed for means this week; and, besides, since Margaret has been to Mr. Royden's, my other darter has been wo'se, and everything has come upon me.”

”Yes; she's had a rather hard time on 't,” put in Job, mildly, and with a faint smile. ”But she does remarkable, that woman does, my friends--remarkable! She means to make the best of everything.”

”He! he! he!” laughed the grandmother, starting up in the corner, and drawing the blanket around her. ”That was a chicken-pie not to be ashamed of,” she mumbled, in shrill tones, between her toothless gums.

”I han't tasted nothing like it these forty year. Our company was wet and hungry enough when they got there; and you'd better believe that 'ere pie had a relis.h.!.+”

”Bygones, bygones!” whispered Job, touching his forehead, with a tender glance at the old woman. ”You mustn't mind her, my friends: we never do.

She is a nice old lady, but all out of date, and very deaf.”

”How does Margaret get along?” asked Mrs. Bowen, in her most ghastly tone.

”Oh, very well indeed. She is the best girl we ever had, by all odds,”

replied Mr. Royden.

”I don't know but I shall have to have her come home for a few days,”

proceeded the other. ”I shall, if my other darter continues so sick. I shall want her help more than the money, though we need that bad enough, Lord knows. We're all out of flour; and, if it wan't for the potatoes you sent over Sunday morning, I don't know what we should do.”

”Oh, we shall do very well, my good wife!” cried Job, cheerily. ”The Lord won't forget us! He is our friend: he is on our side, he is. It'll all be right in the end--glory be to G.o.d for that thought!”

”And for every suffering you will have your reward, my n.o.ble Christian brother,” exclaimed Father Brighthopes, with kindling enthusiasm.

”Believe it: you will come out of the fire all the purer and brighter for the ordeal.”

Job squeezed a tear from his eye, and, looking up with a countenance full of emotion, as the red light from the western clouds fell upon it, took a book from the bench by his side.

”I don't know how I shall thank you for all the comfort I owe you,” he said, with a tearful smile. ”What you tell me is wonderful consoling for me to think about here at work, and to repeat over to my good woman, when she has her trials. But I take it as kind as anything your sending me the books by Margaret. I don't have much chance to read, and they will last me a good while: the better for me, I s'pose. You see, I read a sentence, then I hammer away at my work, thinking it over and over, and explaining it to my good woman: it does her good when she's having her bad spells.”