"He gave an angry laugh at that, and said my last words came pretty often; but I saw him looking curiously at Jim that night, and I guess he'd have let him take it easier for a spell if Jim had known how to take it easy. But there was just so much to do, and he kept on along with the rest. It was Asher, the second one, who gave out first.

"Once or twice he had complained to me that he had dizzy turns, when he kind of lost himself, and I had doctored him a little, not thinking him very sick, till one day they brought him home from the field insensible; and, if he ever knew any of us again, he could never tell us so, and he died in just a week after he was brought home. Yes, we had a doctor.

Jim went twenty miles for one without asking any one's leave. He came twice, but he couldn't help him. All the time he was sick I never spoke a word to his father about him unless he first spoke to me, till one day, when he came in from his work, he found his boy lying still and white, with his hands clasped on his breast, dressed ready for the grave.

"'He'll never be tired any more,' I said.

"He turned and went out without a word; and Asher's name was never spoken between us for years after that.

"It was different with Jim. He kept on till the winter he was eighteen; and I shall always be glad to remember how easy and pleasant his last days were made to him. It was a mild winter, and he kept about doing something or other most of the time. His father, let him do pretty much as he liked, and went on hoping that the spring would make him all right again. He even talked of sending him back to the old place for a change when the summer came; and Jim used to listen, and sometimes said what he would do when he got there. But he knew better. He knew he was dying, and he was not afraid. But he had something he wanted to do before he could be quite willing to go.

"One day, after he had been sitting beside me quietly thinking for awhile, he said--'It's hard on father.'

"'Has anything happened to the fall wheat, or to any of the horses?

What is it that is hard on him?' said I.

"He shook his head, turning to me with a strange grieved look in his eyes.

"'It is hard that he should have to lose another of his boys,' said he.

"'He should have taken better care of them, and he might have kept them,' said I.

"'Mother,' said Jim, 'I think _you_ are hard on father sometimes.'

"'Am I? Oh, well, I guess nothing that I'm likely to say or do will ever hurt him much!' But I knew he was right in a way.

"'Mother, come in here. I want you to lie down on the bed, and I will sit beside you. You are all tired out. And I have got something that I want to tell you.'

"What came into my mind when I turned and looked at him was a kind of wonder what the world would be like to me when he had gone out of it; but what I said was--'I don't feel more tired than common. You lie down on the bed, and I'll get Davie's jacket and mend it while we have a little talk.' So I got the jacket and held it, though I couldn't put a st.i.tch in. My hands shook so that I couldn't thread my needle. Jim took and threaded it for me. And then he lay still, with a look of trouble on his face that made me say at last,--

"'I think I know what you are going to say, Jim. It will be a dreadful trouble to me and your father; but you oughtn't to be troubled about it, Jim. You are going to a better place: you are not afraid, Jim?'

"'No, dear mother, not for myself--nor for you. You'll get over it after awhile, and you'll come too--you and the boys. But, mother, I want father to come too.'

"I hadn't a word to say. I must have been a wicked woman. For half a minute it seemed to me that heaven itself would be spoiled if Ezra Stone were there.

"'And you must help him, mother,' said Jim.

"'I haven't helped him much lately about anything,' I said.

"'No; I think you're a little hard on father, mother;' and then he turned on his pillow and put his two arms round my neck, and drew my face down to his. His words hurt me dreadfully.

"'The Lord Himself will have to take hold to change him,' I said.

"'Yes, of course, mother; and you'll help him.'

"He didn't say any more; and in awhile he fell asleep, and neither of us stirred till I heard his father's step on the floor. I did not stir then, though it had been our way all those years to keep out of his sight any special sign of affection between us.

"He came in and stood a spell looking at us, I suppose; and then he went out, knowing for certain the thing which in his heart he had been dreading all along, for he must have seen the signs of death on his boy's face that day.

"Jim lived full three weeks after that, and he was a very happy boy.

His fear of his father had all gone. Jim showed how glad he was every time he came into the room; and he would smile, and hold his hand, and speak softly to him, words which the rest of us could not hear, till he could stand it no longer. Then Ezra would rise and go out alone. He never came to me for comfort, and, if he had, I had none to give.

"Just once I heard Jim say, 'You will, won't you, father? G.o.d will help you, and--mother.'

"His father groaned, and with good reason, for G.o.d seemed far away from him, and he could not count much on help from me.

"Well, Jim died in his sleep, and we buried him near the other two; and it was very quiet in the house for a spell, and then everything fell into place again, and all went on as before, as far as those looking on could see."

CHAPTER NINE.

MRS STONE.

"That was the poorest summer I ever had as to health. Jim's sickness had run me down, and then I missed him dreadfully, but what really ailed me was a heavy heart. I had lost my hope. I had been a Christian for a good many years, or thought I had. I had joined the Church when I was young, and had tried to live up to my profession, as far as I knew how.

I had enjoyed religion in a way, and got real help in trouble from my Saviour. But that seemed all gone. I didn't enjoy it that summer, and hadn't for a great while.

"I had thought all along that I was doing the best I could, and that I did well to be angry with my husband's ways and to hate them. But Jim had left it to me to help his father; and how was I to help him, when I hated not only his ways but himself, as I began to fear? I hated his greed, and his love of money, and his hardness, which had killed his boys; and I couldn't separate the man from his sins, and yet I knew I ought. I was all wrong for awhile, and I knew it, but I didn't know how to put myself right.

"Time went on, and a little help came to me after awhile in a way I never would have thought of. It was one Sunday. They had all gone to meeting, and I was alone in the house; and I got my courage up to look over Jim's box and the few things that were his very own. Among them I found a little book, such as you've seen, that has a Bible verse for every day of the year, and after each verse a few words to explain it, or to send it home to the heart, and maybe a verse of a hymn after that.

I knew it the minute I saw it. It was one Myra had had when she was a girl. It lay on her bureau always, and she read in it every night.

"She had given it to Jim. Their two names stood together on the first page, and Jim had kept it safe all this time, as I believe, for my help.

For when I turned over the leaves, after awhile I found the text for that day, and it was this: 'Fear not, daughter of Zion. Behold, thy King cometh unto thee! He is just, and having salvation.' And then, among the words that came after to enforce the Scripture were these: 'However strong thine inward enemies, thy corruptions, fear not and be not discouraged. Thy King is bound by His office, by His love, and by His promises, to help thee with strength to overcome.'

"They do not sound much as I say them to you, do they?--but to me they seemed to come like a voice from heaven. I had nothing to say for myself. I had been all wrong for a great while. And I knew I could do nothing now to put myself right. But, according to this, the King Himself was 'bound to help me with strength to overcome.' So I said--'I'll just let go, and see what He'll do about it. He may guide me where He will.' For I had lost my way; and if ever a poor soul knew herself to be 'helpless, and blind, and naked,' I did that day.

"I had a long spell of sickness after that I was run down, and needed rest rather than medicine, the doctor said, and I was left pretty much to myself; and, as we had good help at that time, my sickness didn't make much difference in the house. Mind and body were better for the rest, and I rose in a month or two a happier, and, I hope, a better woman than I was when I lay down. I could not speak about myself or my feelings easily to anybody, and I couldn't say a word to Ezra. But I think he saw the difference. There never was a day after that, that I did not try to say something pleasant to him; and he got none of the sharp answers of which he used to be afraid.

"Things went on pretty much in the old way for a year or two, but better in some respects. We had a new house built, and everything more comfortable about us. A good many people had come to the neighbourhood--well-to-do people; and Ezra had pride enough to wish to 'keep up with the times,' as he said. We had a school too within a reasonable distance, and meetings almost every Sunday; and there was some talk of having a meeting-house built: and, to my surprise, Ezra was the one to offer a lot of land to build it on.

"There was talk of a railroad coming our way, which would bring markets nearer, and increase the value of property; and all this did not make him less eager about making money, but more so. I _did_ try to get on better terms with him these days, and I could see that anything I said had more influence with him, though he would not own it in words. My pride was broken as far as he was concerned; the hard feeling against him had gone out of my heart. I could pray for him, and hope for him, and I had peace in my own soul, which made all the difference. The boys were good boys too, and had an easier time than their brothers had had, and were growing up like other folks' children--manly little fellows, afraid of nothing--and I did not fret about them as I had done about the others. We might have gone on like this for years if something had not happened."

Mrs Stone paused, and leaned back against the rock with her face turned away for a little while. Then she said--

"It did seem even to me, for a while, that the Lord was dealing hardly by Ezra, and that his heart was hardening rather than softening under the hand that was laid upon him. The harvest time had come again, and there had been more than the usual trouble about getting men to help with it. The boys had been kept steadily at work, but made no complaint; and their father, as the hired men declared, had done the work of two. He was the first up in the morning and the last to go to rest at night, and sometimes even had his food carried to the field to him, rather than lose the time coming to the house. So one morning it gave me quite a start to see him coming toward the house about ten o'clock, and I laid down my work and waited till he came in; and, whatever I forget before I die, I shall never forget the look on his face as he came near. I saw that he staggered as he walked, and that his right arm hung helpless by his side.

"'What is it?' I cried out, running toward him, He put out his left hand as if to keep me off, and I saw that he moved his lips as though he were speaking, but he uttered no sound.

"'You are hurt!' I said; and I took his arm, and he stumbled into the house, and fell across the bed in a dead faint. We did what we could for him--Prissy and I--and in the midst of our trouble I heard steps and voices coming towards the house; and, for the first time, the thought that something worse might have happened came to me. I turned round and saw the two hired men bringing something in on a board. My Davie! I had no power to cry out when I saw him--bruised, broken, and bleeding to death! I had just sense enough left to make them carry him into another room, so that the eyes of his father might not fall on him when they opened; and so they laid him down.

"'It'll only hurt him to try to do anything for him, Mrs Stone,' said one of the men, with a break in his voice. 'Speak to him. He has got something he wants to tell you. All he has said since it happened is--"I must tell mother."'

"So I knelt down beside him, and put a little water on his face, and rubbed his hands, and whispered--'Davie dear, tell mother.'

"And then he opened his eyes and said faintly,--'It doesn't hurt much; and, mother dear, father wasn't to blame.'

"'And you're not afraid, my Davie?' I asked; and he said--

"'No, I needn't be, need I, mother? Jim's gone there, and baby--and Jesus died. Pray, mother!'