During the long hours in which Grandfather waited for Amos, he reviewed his life, searching like Job to find where he had erred and how he had brought upon himself the heavy punishments of his old age. He had tried to do his duty, had preached righteousness, had tried to interpret the Bible correctly, had given to the poor. He had married, but the instinct to mate had been implanted in the human heart by God Himself. Except in this one act, his whole life had been one of self-denial.
In spite of his effort to be righteous, his life had followed a descending scale since his thirtieth year. Then his wife had died, and about the same time three families had left the church, two to become Lutherans, the other to go to church no more. They had all been rich in this world's goods, and what was far more important, they had been large families.
Afterwards Mary had married Edward Levis and the danger to her soul had occupied his anxious heart. He had recovered presently his sense of security and had built great hopes upon Matthew and Amos and Ellen; but here again he had been cruelly disappointed—Ellen had left him and Matthew had behaved shamefully. Last week Millie had come angrily complaining that Matthew was bewitched; he would not go to church, he was teaching the children to despise her, and he had taken to reading books which he had once considered wicked.
"He tells little Matthew that things I say are wrong. My way was him good enough when we were married. It is that Ellen!"
And now Amos had gone, and the souls of all three were in peril; they were sheep lost upon the mountain.
If it had not been for the discovery of these unclean volumes, Grandfather would have had a search instituted at once for his nephew. But to him they explained everything. He felt a destroying rage with Amos; he could look upon him with far less leniency than upon Matthew and Ellen. It was in his case as though a dog which for years pretended gentleness had turned and rent the hand that fed it. He had practiced a long piece of deceit; some of these books he must have had for months. Grandfather pondered upon his comings and goings and decided correctly upon the exact day on which he had made his first excursion in search of literature. With fresh suspicion he took from the table drawer "The Mystic Dove" and Amos's translation and discovered that work had ceased months ago. He looked with tears at the marginal scribblings.
"I trusted him too much," he said bitterly.
He sat waiting all the rainy afternoon and evening.
But Amos did not come. Night fell after a gloomy twilight and Grandfather went exhausted to bed. He locked the door with a stern pressing together of his thin lips, but after a while he rose and unlocked it. He even opened it and, shivering, looked out into the black landscape. But no human being was to be seen and only the mocking blast of an automobile horn from the curve near by was to be heard.
Another day passed and Amos did not come. On the third day Grandfather saw the rural carrier drop a letter into his box and hurried feebly to the road. He opened it as he returned through the graveyard, but found that he could not read. He was frightened until he remembered that he did not have his spectacles.