Like Israel of old I must prevail,
Or failing, still reach on to something higher.
They counted Him a failure when He trod
The slopes of Calvary that led to God!
—HELENA COLEMAN.
All winter the eldest1 orphan2's reformed conduct had been the subject of joyous3 wonder on the part of his parents. Hannah was of the opinion that the boy had been converted at Mr. Scott's series of special meetings at Christmas time, but Jake, having been a boy himself, shook his head, and said it was likely just a spell he had taken with the cold weather, and it would work off when the summer came, like Joey's whooping-cough. But, strange to say, Tim went no more abroad with Davy Munn on lawless expeditions. Sawed-Off Wilmott and the young Lochinvar from Glenoro came regularly, on alternate evenings, to see Ella Anne Long, and never found ropes tied across the gate, nor whips nor lap-robes missing, as in Tim's unregenerate days. Even Miss Weir5 testified that sometimes he would not do anything particularly outrageous6 in school for a week at a time. The truth was that the eldest orphan had neither time nor inclination7 for childish mischief8. Mentally, he had grown up. He dwelt no more in the common walks of humanity, but in the land of romance. For one who consorted9 with heroes, fought great battles, and performed mighty10 deeds of valor11, childish pranks12 had no interest. He cared now for nothing in the world but to read all day long, and half the night; to read anything and everything, from the hair-raising cowboy tales Davy Munn loaned him, to the ponderous13 histories from the minister's book-shelf. Through this selfsame book-shelf the minister had become one of Tim's closest friends, and might have made a pastoral visitation every day in the week and been welcome. He had almost got ahead of the doctor in the eldest orphan's regard; for while the doctor had plenty of books, whole shelves of them, they were queer, stupid things, full of long, hard words, and never a battle or a shipwreck14 from one cover to the other.
At first, the boy's greedy desire to devour15 a story at one sitting filled him with impatience16 at his own slowness. He found, to his chagrin17, that he could not read the "Waverley Novels" with the swiftness the course of events demanded. He tried having them read aloud by his father, but though Jake was always willing, he stumbled and spelled his way through the battles and adventures with a laboriousness18 that nearly set his young listener mad.
But one winter night Tim discovered a royal road to learning. The minister had called, and left "Quentin Durward." It was an evening the boy had been in the habit of spending with John McIntyre, so he slipped the volume inside his coat and sped away with it down to the Drowned Lands.
And wonderful good fortune, John McIntyre proved a splendid reader. Not only that, but after his first reluctance19 had been overcome, he seemed to like the task.
That was the beginning of a new life for both of them. The boy came almost every evening now, and as John McIntyre grew stronger he often read on, as absorbed as his listener, until the hour was late. Then, instead of going home, Tim would curl up snugly20 in bed behind his friend, and sleep until he was awakened21 in time to start for school.
One evening, when the sick man had almost recovered his wonted strength, Tim came hobbling down the road with a large volume bulging23 out the front of his coat. John McIntyre sat before his fire, looking through his little frosted panes24 at the beauty of the winter sunset, and something of the sadness in his weary eyes vanished as the little figure appeared against the filmy rose mists of Treasure Valley, and came trotting25 down the glittering road. There seemed to be a reflection of the sunset glow in the man's face as the boy bounded in.
"Hello!" he shouted, pitching his snowy mittens26 under the stove and his cap upon the bed. "I've got a new story." He struggled to extract the book from his coat. "Old Hughie Cameron gave it to me. Hech! hech! hoots27! toots! indeed and indeed!" he added, hobbling about the room, and imitating the old man's caressing28 manner to perfection.
No one in Elmbrook had ever seen John McIntyre smile, nor did he do so now; but as he watched the absurd attempts of the youngster to portray29 the queer gait of the village philosopher there came into his eyes a look as though there had passed before them the ghost of the days when he, himself, was young and light-hearted and full of boyish pranks. He arose, and lighting30 the little lamp, placed it upon the table.
"It's a bully31 story," went on the boy. "Old Hughie started to read it to me an' the twins las' night, but they got to scrappin', an' I had to lambaste 'em both, an' so he didn't finish. He said mebby you would. It's about an old guy who was rich an' had chunks32 o' money, an' a big family, an' all the rest; an' the devil got after him an' busted33 up the whole thing. He got all his cows an' his horses an' things struck with lightning, an' his boys an' his girls were all at a swell34 birthday spree, an' the house up an' fell down, an' smashed every bloomin' one o' them—oh, say! it's a dandy!"
He placed the book on the table and shoved it toward John McIntyre. The man reached for it, but quickly drew back.
"It's—the Bible!" he said sharply.
"Yes," said Tim, "'course. Did ye ever read any of it?" He paused in embarrassment35. John McIntyre, being such a particularly bad man, a fact he was prone36 to forget, would naturally scorn to read the Bible. He felt ashamed of himself. "It's got a whole lot o' bully yarns37 in it," he added apologetically.
The man was looking at the Book as though he were afraid of it.
"This man's name was Job. D'ye ever hear about him?" continued Tim insinuatingly38.
"Yes, I've read it."
"Oh, have you? Well, read it again. Aw, go on. It won't hurt!"
He shoved the book into the man's hands. He had learned, long ere this, that John McIntyre was his obedient servant. "Begin at the beginning, 'cause I kinder forget how it starts."
So, for the first time in many long years, John McIntyre took into his hands the Word of God—the Book he had been wont22 to read every evening, so long ago, in the light of his happy home circle.
"There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God and eschewed39 evil."
Tim snuggled down on Miss Arabella's rug, close to the stove, his chin in his hands, and stared up with eager, devouring40 eyes. At first, John McIntyre read in a strained, hard voice, but soon he seemed to forget everything but the absorbing tale—the tale of his own life—a man's struggle with overwhelming sorrow; and yet how different from his own. For Job had not sinned, nor "charged God foolishly," while he, in his bitterness, had thrown the blame of his evil case upon his Maker41, and declared that He knew not compassion42.
Throughout the early portion of the story Tim listened with eyes and ears, but when they entered upon the long discourses43 of Job's friends he grew restless. There was not enough action here. Thunder and lightning, sudden deaths, and overwhelming catastrophes45 were exactly suited to the orphan's taste, but theological controversy46 was a weariness to his soul. He wriggled47 around impatiently, counted the purple robins48 again and again, and gouged49 holes in the single eye each possessed50. But still the dreary51 talk went on.
"Say! ain't that coon ever goin' to get done shootin' off?" he broke in wearily, in the midst of a long speech from Eliphaz the Temanite.
John McIntyre did not hear. He had come to the answer of Job, words that found an echo in his own bitter heart:
"I was at ease, but He hath broken me asunder52; He hath also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for His mark. His archers53 compass me round about. He cleaveth my reins54 asunder, and doth not spare."
The anguish55 in the reader's voice, conveying the strength of the man's mighty grief, made itself felt in the child's soul, and stilled him. He gazed up into John McIntyre's haggard face with a strange heaviness at his heart. Through chapter after chapter he waited, silent and subdued56, but at last his weariness overcame his fears. He rolled over on the rug and yawned loudly.
"Aw, shucks!" he muttered; "they're as bad at gassin' as Ella Anne Long!" He waited through another chapter, and then broke in once more.
"Say! couldn't you skip all that blather, an' tell us what happened next? Didn't the devil get after him again?"
The reader paused, and gazed down at the boy in a dazed fashion. "What do you want?" he asked vaguely57.
"I wish them fellows would hustle58 up, an' quit chewin'. Did Job get all right again?"
John McIntyre mechanically turned the leaves. He experienced a grim satisfaction in the boy's complaints. What did these wordy friends of Job know of sorrow and despair? As though they were conditions that could be explained away! He turned almost to the end of the story, and there he paused. A new actor had entered the sorrowful drama. Out of the whirlwind there came a Voice—the voice of the Infinite—and before its thunder the souls of Job and his friends bowed in self-abasement.
The reading went on again, continuing uninterrupted to the end. The man closed the Book, dropping it heavily upon the table.
"Is that all?" demanded Tim, fearing to be cheated out of one word of the story.
"That is all," said John McIntyre in a whisper. He shaded his eyes with his hand. What long, weary days and nights had passed over him since he last looked into that Book! He had thought never to look into it again, and yet its pages held their old convincing power. There was still that magic touch that went straight to a man's heart, as only God's word can. Job had suffered, had been bereft59 of all that made life worth the holding, and yet he had
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