Gabriel's elder brothers were there, too, talking and laughing in an undertone. No one took any notice of Gabriel, whose eye fell on the dusty, rusty book, and eagerly he picked it up, thinking to see if again he could find the wonder of the flaming words.
As he opened it, several verses on the page before him gleamed into light. In mute wonder he read:—
"And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.'
"But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?'
"So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God."
Gabriel scarcely dared to lift his eyes toward his father, much less would he have offered to read to him again the flaming words.
All through the supper time he thought of them and kept very still, for the others were unusually talkative, his father seeming in such excellent spirits that Gabriel knew the figures on his desk had brought him satisfaction.
"But if he did not oppress Mother Lemon," thought the boy, "he would be richer toward God."
When the meal was over, Gabriel took a piece of paper and went quietly to the back of the house where, in a box, was the refuse of the day's cooking. He found some bones and other scraps, and, running across the fields to Mother Lemon's, tiptoed to the low shed which held Topaz, and, finding a wide crack, pushed the bones and scraps within.
Then he fled home and to bed, for he had always found that the earlier he closed his eyes, the shorter was the night.