THE PHILOSOPHY OF A WOODEN LEG.
"You have a good trade, friend Bowen," said Father Brighthopes, drawing his chair near the shoemaker's bench.
"It does capital for me!" replied Job, cheerfully. "Since I got a bayonet through my knee at Lundy's Lane, I find I get on best in the world sittin' still."
He smiled pleasantly over this feeble attempt at humor, and arranged some waxed ends, which, for convenience, he had hung upon his wooden leg.
"Did you learn shoe-making before you went soldiering?" asked the clergyman.
"I'd been a 'prentice. But I tired of the monotony. So I quarreled with my trade, and fought my last at Lundy's Lane, as I tell people," said Job, with twinkling eyes.
"You got the worst of it?"
"All things considered I did. This fighting is bad business; and, you see, I decidedly put my foot in it."
Job touched his wooden leg significantly, to illustrate the joke.
"You seem merry over your misfortune," observed Father Brighthopes.
"Better be merry than sad, you know. There's no use o' complainin' of Providence, when my own folly tripped me up. My understanding is not so lame as that."
It was amusing to see with what a relish the poor fellow cracked these little jokes of his over his infirmity. To get hold of someone who had never heard them before, and could laugh at them as well as if they were quite fresh and new, seemed a great happiness to him; and the clergyman did not fail to appreciate and encourage his humor.
"On the whole," said the latter, "you made a bad bargain when you traded your hammer and awl for a musket and cartridge-box?"
Job's eyes glistened. He rubbed his hands together with delight. The old man had given him a capital opportunity to get in another of his jokes, just like an impromptu.
"I might have made a worse bargain," he said. "As long as I had one leg left,"—he touched his solitary knee,-"I ought to call it a good bargain. You see, I did not come off altogether without something to boot."
"I hope you were contented to return to shoe-making?" remarked the clergyman, laughing.
"Well—yes," replied Job, in his cheerful half whisper. "I did not find the change so difficult as many would. I can say, truthfully, that, with me, there was but one step between the battle-field and the shop."
Father Brighthopes took time to consider the enormity of this far-reaching jest, and replied,
"Well, brother; I trust you get along pretty well now."
"Passable, passable. Better than I should, if I was a lamp-lighter or a penny-postman. I wouldn't make a very good ballet-dancer, either. Do you think I would?"
Father Brighthopes replied that, in his experience, he had learned to regard a contented shoemaker as more blessed—even if he had lost a leg—than a miserly millionaire, or an ambitious monarch.
"I've had considerable to try me, though," said Job. "Two fine boys, 'at would now be able to take care of me and the family, got the small-pox both 't a time; one was nineteen, t'other fifteen; I'd rather lost a dozen legs, if I'd had 'em," he murmured, thoughtfully. "Then I've one darter that's foolish and sickly. She an't able to do nothin', and it's took more 'n my pension was wo'th to doctor her."
"You have seen affliction: thank God, my friend, that you have come through it so nobly!" exclaimed Father Brighthopes, smiling, with tears of sympathy running down his cheeks.
He patted Job's shoulder kindly; and the poor fellow could not speak, for a moment, his heart was touched so deeply.
"It's all for the best, I s'pose," said he, coughing, and drawing his shirt-sleeve across his eyes.
"Yes; and you will get your reward," answered the old man.
"So I believe! I find so much comfort in these good old leaves."
Job pointed to a worn Bible, that lay on the mantel-piece.
"Right! right!" cried the clergyman, joyously. "Job Bowen, there is a crown for thee! Job Bowen, in my life I have not met with twenty men so blessed as thou. But thousands and thousands of the rich and prosperous well might envy thee, thou poor Christian shoemaker, with one leg!"
"Thank you! thank you, for saying so much!" bubbled from Job's lips, like a gushing stream of glad water.
He laughed; he shed tears; he seemed warmed through and through with the sunshine of peace. The clergyman clasped his hand, weeping silently, with joy in his glorious old face.
"Yes," said Job, rallying, "I knowed it 'u'd be all right in the end. I tell folks, though I an't good at dancing and capering, and turning short corners in life, and dodging this way and that, with my wooden stump, I shall do well enough in the long run."
"And, considering how well afflictions prepare us for heaven, we may say," added Father Brighthopes, "you have already put your best foot forward."
"That I have! that I have!" cried Job, delighted.
"How does your wife bear up, under all her trials?" asked the old man.
At this juncture the old woman in the corner started once more from her dreams, and cried out.
"On the left-hand side, as you go down. There was thirteen children of 'em—all boys but two. The youngest was a gal, born the same day we sold our old brindle cow."
Mr. Royden and the clergyman both started, and looked at the speaker.
"Don't mind her,—don't mind the poor creatur'!" said Job, softly. "Her talk is all out of date; it's all about bygones. A kind old lady, but childish again, and very deaf."
Father Brighthopes returned to the subject they were conversing upon.
"My wife has seen a mighty deal of bad weather," said Job, very softly. "Oh, she has got through it amazin' well, for a feeble woman. She astonishes me every day o' my life. But, then, you see, she's a good deal broken, late years."
"I am sorry for her,—sorry for her!" exclaimed the clergyman, warmly. "But there's a good time coming for all of us old people,"—looking up, with a peaceful smile.
"So I tell her," replied Job. "But she han't got the animal sperrits she once had. And that an't to be wondered at. Oh, she's a good soul! and if she'd pluck up heart a little,—gracious!" exclaimed the shoemaker, doubling his fists, and compressing his lips with hopeful firmness, "I think I wouldn't like any better fun than to fight the world ten or a dozen years longer!"
"My bold Christian hero!"
"Thank you, sir! To be that is glory enough for me; though I didn't think exactly so when I stood strong and proud on two legs. I believed then I was destined to do wonders with bayonets and gun-powder."
The clergyman patted his shoulder kindly, and said, "Do you not feel it is better as it is?"
"Well, yes. I think of that a good deal. 'Supposing I had got to be a real, genuine bloody hero?' I say to myself. 'What would it all have come to, in the end?' I expect it was the best thing the devil could have done for me, when he knocked me off my pins. Ah! here comes mother, with Maggie."
Mrs. Bowen entered, accompanied by a plain, good-natured, wholesome-looking girl, modest, but not awkward, coarsely but quite neatly attired. She advanced to shake hands with Mr. Royden, and inquired about Mrs. Royden and the children.
"They will all be glad to see you," he replied. "What do you say to coming and helping us, next week?"
"I don't know how I can come, any way in the world," said Maggie. "Ma's health is so poor now, I ought to be at home."
"I s'pose I shall have to spare you, if you think you would like to go," added Mrs. Bowen, in her sepulchral tone of voice.
Maggie colored very red. She seemed to know hardly what to say. Fortunately, the grandmother in the corner attracted observation from her, by crying out, with a shrill, childish laugh,
"So she did! he, he, he! Eggs ten cents a dozen, and all the hens a settin'! That beat all the jokes I ever heard on! Eggs ten cents a dozen, and five hens a—'s—'s—'s—"
The words died away in the old woman's toothless jaws; but her lips continued to move, and her mind seemed to float lightly upon the waves of an inaudible laugh. Mrs. Bowen broke the silence which followed.
"The truth is,"—what a ghostly tone!—"Maggie didn't like to work for Mrs. Royden any too well, when she was there before."
"Oh, ma!" spoke up the girl, entreatingly.
"It's the truth. She liked your folks well enough, but there's pleasanter families to work for."
"Fie, mother!" said Job, softly. "Let bygones be bygones."
"I am glad you spoke of it," added Mr. Royden, frankly. "My wife means to be kind, but she has a good deal to try her, and she gets fretful, now and then. I am troubled the same way, too."
"Oh, Maggie never said a word ag'in' you," rejoined Mrs. Bowen; "nor any real harm of Mrs. Royden, for that matter. But, as I said, there's pleasanter families to work for."
"Well, well!" cried Mr. Royden, desirous of getting away from the disagreeable topic, "I think, if Maggie will try it again, she will find things a little different. At any rate, she mustn't mind too much what my wife says, when she is irritated."
"I suppose you will give a dollar and a half a week, in the busy season?"
If Mr. Royden hesitated at this reasonable suggestion of the girl's mother, it was only because he knew his wife would hardly be satisfied to pay so much. But a glance around the room, in which a struggle with poverty was so easily to be seen, decided him. What was a quarter, a half, or even a dollar a week, to come out of his pocket? How much the miserable trifle might be, falling into the feeble palm of the ghastly woman, whom trouble had crushed, and who found it such a hard and wretched task to toil and keep her family together!
"I can't come until the last of the week, any way," said Maggie.
"I am sorry for that," replied Mr. Royden.
"I might get along as early as Wednesday; Monday I am engaged to Deacon Dustan's——"
"I shouldn't care if you broke that engagement," said Mrs. Bowen. "Rich people as the Dustans are, they an't willing to pay a poor girl thirty-seven and a half cents for a hard day's work a washing!"
"I must go, since I have promised," quietly observed Margaret. "Tuesday I shall have a good many things to do for myself. So I guess you may expect me Wednesday morning."
"Well, Wednesday be it; I will send over for you before breakfast," said Mr. Royden. "Now, I want you to make up your mind to get along with us as well as you can, and you shall have a dollar and a half, and a handsome present besides."
Having concluded the bargain, Mr. Royden took leave of the family, with his companion.
"Lord bless you, sir!" said Job, when he shook hands with the clergyman. "You have done me a vast sight of good! I feel almost another man. Do come again, sir; we need a little comfort, now and then."
"I hope your minister calls occasionally?" suggested Father Brighthopes.
"Not often, sir, I am sorry to say. He's over to Deacon Dustan's every day; but he never got as far as here but once. And I'd just as lives he wouldn't come. He didn't seem comfortable here, and I thought he was glad to get out of sight of poverty. He's a nice man,—Mr. Corlis is, sir,—but he hasn't a great liking to poor people, which I s'pose is nat'ral."
"Well, you shall see me again, Providence permitting," cried Father Brighthopes, cheerfully. "Keep up a good heart," he added, shaking hands with Mrs. Bowen. "Christ is a friend to you; and there's a glorious future for all of us. Good-by! good-by! God bless you all!"
He took the grandmother's hand again, and pressed it in silence. His face was full of kindly emotion, and his eyes beamed with sympathy.
"Yes, I guess so!" cried the old woman. "About fifteen or twenty. The string of that old looking-glass broke just five years from the day it was hung up. It was the most wonderfulest thing I ever knowed on! I telled our folks something dre'ful was going to happen."
She still continued to mumble over some inaudible words between her gums, but the light of her eyes grew dim, and she settled once more in her dreams.
Mr. Royden went out; the clergyman followed, leaving the door open, and a stream of sunshine pouring its flood of liquid gold upon the olden floor.