Hayes was one of those who tried to persuade Chet to take the field. An abiding friendship had grown up between these two. And late in October Hayes brought another puppy to the farm.
“He’ll never be the dog Job was,” he told Chet. “But he’s a well-blooded dog.”
“There won’t ever be another Job,” Chet agreed. “But—I’m obliged for the puppy—and he’ll be company for Job.”
He called the new dog Mac and he set about Mac’s training that winter, but his heart was not in it. That Job should grow old made Chet feel his own years heavy upon him. He was still in middle life, as hale as any man of twenty. But—Job was growing old and Chet’s heart was heavy.
Mary Thurman in the village—it was she whom Job called his mistress—saw the sorrow in Chet. She was full of sympathetic understanding of the man. They were as truly one as though they had been married these dozen years.
Annie Bissell, Will Bissell’s wife, said to her once: “Why don’t you marry him, Mary? Land knows, you’ve loved him long enough.”
Mary Thurman told her: “He don’t need me. He’s always lived alone and been comfortable enough and never known the need of a woman. I’ll marry no man that don’t know he needs me and tells me so.”
“Land knows, he needs someone to rid up that house of his. It’s a mess,” the other woman said.
“Chet don’t need me,” Mary insisted. “When he needs me I reckon I’ll go to him.”
She saw now the sorrow in Chet’s eyes and she tried to talk him out of it and to some extent succeeded.