Father Brighthopes Part 32

"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 sunshine, 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 relish!"

"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."

"Which of the books do you like best?" asked the clergyman.

"The story of the Pilgrim's Progress is a glorious thing for a lonesome and fainting traveler on the same road, like me!" exclaimed Job. "But I had read that before, and got it pretty well by heart. Now, this _Barnes' Notes_ interests me as much as anything; there was so many things in the Testament I wanted to have explained."

"I am delighted to think you are comforted by any of the books," said the old clergyman, warmly.

"Oh, I get a world of good out of this one, especially. Wife sometimes tells me 't an't no use to read it; but," said Job, with a gleaming intelligence in his queer face, as the sunset glow deepened upon it, "what do you think I tell her?"

Father Brighthopes knew some pleasant sally was coming, and encouraged him to proceed.

"I tell her," said Job, quietly chuckling, "the study of _Barnes_ makes my faith _stable_."

This little jest appealed to the sympathies of the farmers, and they honored it with a laugh. Job was radiant with joy.

"I wish the _Notes_ was condensed into half the number of volumes," he proceeded, under this encouragement. "If I had time to read them, the more the better. But I find them like the waters of a deep stream."

Father Brighthopes saw a joke in Job's twinkling eyes, and asked him to explain the comparison.

"Ha! ha!" Job laughed, in spite of himself. "It's a little conundrum I made to amuse my good woman, in one of her bad turns. Why are Barnes'

Notes like the waters of a deep stream? _Answer_,--because one would find them easier to get _over_, if they were a-_bridged_."

The company laughed again; and the clergyman thought it best that they should take leave at the moment when Job was elated with his brilliant success.

"It was in the year 'seventeen," spoke up the grandmother, rousing from her dreams, as they were going away; "I remember it as well as if 'twas yesterday."

"Poor woman!" muttered Job, with feeling, "I've no doubt but she remembers it a great deal better, whatever it is."

"Come again, and I'll tell ye all about it," proceeded the old lady, with a shrill laugh. "I actually gi'n that creatur' three pecks of inions and a pan of dried apples; and she never said so much as _thank'e_, to this day! I might have expected it, though; for she was a Dudley on her mother's side, and everybody knowed how mean that race of Dudleys always was, partic'larly the women folks. Airly in March, in the year 'seventeen."

She relapsed again into her dreams; Mrs. Bowen bid the visitors a hoa.r.s.e and melancholy _good-evening_; and Job stumped to the door on his wooden leg to see them off.

XXVII.

"OLD FOLKS" AND "YOUNG FOLKS."

"Now, then, about the new meeting-house," remarked Father Brighthopes, in a spirited tone, carrying his hat in his hand.

The sun was down, the fiery glow was fading from the clouds, and, as the dying light fell upon his large pale forehead and thin white locks of hair, tinging them faintly with gold, Mr. Corlis thought he had never seen so striking a picture of beautiful and venerable age.

"We hear you," said Deacon Dustan.

"Well," proceeded the old man, "my notion is simply this: if your society can afford to build a new meeting-house, build it, by all means."

"There's wisdom for you!" cried the deacon, triumphantly. "My own ideas simplified and expressed in three words, _If we can afford to build_; and who will say we cannot afford so much?"

"What is it, to afford?" asked Mr. Royden, perplexed by the old clergyman's decision.

"Have you the means to spare for the purpose?" suggested Mr. Corlis.