"Oh, Bap, don't!" she cried. "Don't take it like that!"
"I've give' up," he said dully. "Seems as if it wa'n't worth while to go on living any longer, when I've made such an awful failure. It's the hope of a lifetime blasted, and I can't help feelin' that some way or 'nother mother knows it, too, and is disappointed in me."
She gathered the bowed head in her arms, and pressing it toward her, began stroking it with soothing touches, as tenderly as if she had been that disappointed mother.
"There, there!" she sobbed, with a choking voice. "You sha'n't say that again. The world might count it a failure, same as they would a race-horse that didn't get under the wire first. But what if you didn't get there, Bap, think how you ran! You went just as far as the Lord let you, and nobody can count it a failure when He stepped in and stopped you. Look at Moses! He didn't get to his Promised Land either. Maybe it ain't right for me to make Bible comparisons, but you went just as far as he did, where you could stand and look over, and I'm proud of you for it. It's a sight farther than most people get."
There was tender silence for a little space, then she descended from the Pisgah on which she had placed him and came down to the concerns of every-day life. When she spoke again it was with her usual bustling air of authority.
"Here, I've brought the key," she said. "Stick your carpet-bag inside the door, and come home with me. Jordan or no Jordan, you've got to have a cup of tea and a good hot supper."
THE END.