Treasure Valley Part 26

"Yes," said Tim, "'course. Did ye ever read any of it?" He paused in embarra.s.sment. John McIntyre, being such a particularly bad man, a fact he was p.r.o.ne to forget, would naturally scorn to read the Bible.

He felt ashamed of himself. "It's got a whole lot o' bully yarns 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 insinuatingly.

"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 G.o.d--the Book he had been wont 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 G.o.d and eschewed evil."

Tim snuggled down on Miss Arabella's rug, close to the stove, his chin in his hands, and stared up with eager, devouring 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 G.o.d foolishly," while he, in his bitterness, had thrown the blame of his evil case upon his Maker, and declared that He knew not compa.s.sion.

Throughout the early portion of the story Tim listened with eyes and ears, but when they entered upon the long discourses of Job's friends he grew restless. There was not enough action here. Thunder and lightning, sudden deaths, and overwhelming catastrophes were exactly suited to the orphan's taste, but theological controversy was a weariness to his soul. He wriggled around impatiently, counted the purple robins again and again, and gouged holes in the single eye each possessed. But still the dreary talk went on.

"Say! ain't that c.o.o.n 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 asunder; He hath also taken me by my neck and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for His mark. His archers compa.s.s me round about. He cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare."

The anguish 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 subdued, 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 ga.s.sin' 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 fas.h.i.+on. "What do you want?" he asked vaguely.

"I wish them fellows would hustle 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-abas.e.m.e.nt.

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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d's word can. Job had suffered, had been bereft of all that made life worth the holding, and yet he had garnered from the seed sown in anguish, not bitterness and despair and hatred of G.o.d and man, but a golden harvest of divine revelation, a wealth of eternal hope and joy: "I know that my Redeemer liveth!"

When the eldest orphan started out for the Drowned Lands the next evening he sighted the minister on the village street ahead of him. He was about to hasten his footsteps to overtake him, when he noticed Mr.

Scott pause and speak to some one.

As the boy drew slowly near, he was amazed to see that it was Sandy McQuarry. They seemed to be talking in quite a friendly tone, too, while over at Long's store Tim's foster-father, and his enemy, Spectacle John, and the blacksmith, were craning their necks through the doorway, and apparently enjoying the scene. Sandy did not speak long, but they parted with a hearty handshake.

"h.e.l.lo!" cried the boy, coming up alongside the tall figure. The orphans could never be accused of stiffness or formality.

"h.e.l.lo!" cried the minister, with equal cordiality. His eyes were s.h.i.+ning, and he looked as though he had just received great and good news.

"Ain't he mad at ye any more?" asked Tim, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate Sandy McQuarry, the way he had seen his father do.

The minister's eyes grew brighter. "No, Tim, he's not mad at me any more, and, please G.o.d, he never will be."

"Did you take it back, what you said about Muskoka?"

"Well, yes, partly; but it wasn't that." The laughter lines were deepening around the minister's eyes. "When you grow older you will understand better. And how are you feeling to-night? Cold better, eh?"

"Oh, I'm fine and dandy. How's yourself?" He was prancing along by the man's side, with a gait peculiar, even to himself. The orphans all had a curious, orphan-like habit of rendering pedestrianism as difficult as possible. The twins would stagger around for a whole day tied together at the ankles, and Tim now displayed this family peculiarity by hirpling along, one foot up on the smooth, hard roadway, the other plunging far into the deep snow.

"Very well, thank you," said Mr. Scott. "Where are you going?"

"Down to see John." His tone revealed his pride in the daring confession. It was a splendid thing to have such a wicked man for a chum, a man whom folks said even the minister feared.

"Ah! What are you reading now?"

"'We haven't got anything new for to-night. I was wis.h.i.+n' I had a book." He looked up slyly, to see if the hint had taken effect.

The minister fell easily into the trap. "Dear me! I'm sorry I didn't know that. You might have had 'Nicholas Nickleby.' I'll send it to school with Tommy to-morrow, if you promise you won't read any of it in school, eh?"

"All right; 'course not," cried Tim righteously.

"And what have you been reading since you finished 'Pilgrim's Progress'?"

The minister looked down enviously at the small, hobbling figure. If he had only been wise enough, he reflected, to go to that man with this child's faith and good-fellows.h.i.+p, they might have been on such terms of intimacy now, and he might have helped to cure that look of pain in John McIntyre's eyes.

"We've been readin' about a chap named Job. It's in the Bible. Ever read it?"

"The Bible!" The minister paused in the road. What miracle had led the child thither? "Did McIntyre read Job to you?"

"Yes."

"Every bit of it?"

"Yes--all but a lot o' mushy talk in the middle. Them jiggers had such an awful lot to say we skipped some of it. But we read the end."

"Ah, you've got a fine story-book now, Tim! You'll not find such another. Ask McIntyre to read you some more of its stories. They're better than 'Nicholas Nickleby.'"

Tim looked dubious. With the exception of Job, and Daniel in the lions' den, and extracts from one or two thrilling tales like that, he considered the Bible rather tame. His foster-father read a chapter to them every night before they went to bed, but the eldest of the family was generally too much occupied in pinching the twins, or keeping them in order, to give the reading anything better than a very desultory attention. But Jake's slow, droning voice was not calculated to arouse interest. "I dunno," he said, glancing up sidelong at the man. "Mebby he--I don't think he likes it--much."

"Oh, you set him at the right stories, and he will. Don't you like stories of s.h.i.+pwreck?"

"You bet!"