“We have the promise, father: ‘Trust in the Lord and do good, and verily thou shalt be fed.’”
“I’d give the world, if I had it, for the simple, child-like faith of our father and mother,” said John, as soon as the brothers were alone.
“And I’d give the world, if I had it, for a chance to live my life over, that I might have an opportunity to atone for the suffering I have caused you all.”
“Dear Joe, you have suffered too.”
He turned his face to the wall and relapsed into silence. And as he secretly invoked the presence of his beloved dead, he saw himself in an emigrant’s camp far away in the Black Hills. Again the tethered Flossie lowed plaintively at the wagon-wheel, bemoaning the death of her calf; again the still, white-robed form of his Annie appeared before his mental vision. And the sorrowing husband fell asleep.
XXXIX
THE OLD HOMESTEAD
The gray dawn of a bleak December morning found the Ranger brothers alternately stamping the snow from their feet on the front veranda of the old homestead, and listening for the first sounds of awakening within. The same denuded locust-boughs swept the lattice as of yore; and it seemed but yesterday to John Ranger as he recalled the time he had caught his gentle Annie in his arms on that momentous and well-remembered evening, and made the startling announcement, “It’s all settled, mother. Brother Lije has bought the farm, and we’ll be off in less than a month for Oregon.”
He turned to his brother, whose face was like marble as he stood in the shadow of the wall, as silent as the Sphinx.
“Who in thunder is coming here to rout a fellow out o’ bed at this time of a Sunday morning?” growled Lije Robinson, as he opened the door an inch or so and peeped out into the biting air.