"Tim, the faither's come. Tim, me boy, confess now and get ready for hiven."
The boy glanced up. Perhaps Job did look like a priest, with his smooth face and manly countenance. He hardly knew what to say or do except to take that weak hand in his and press it with a brother's warm clasp of sympathy. The dying boy touched his inmost heart.
"Faither," the boy faltered, "I am so sick! I have been a bad boy sometimes. I—I—" Then he stopped to cough, and continued, "I haven't been to mass in a year—no chance here, faither—and I got drunk last Fourth—may the Holy Mother forgive me!—and I have been so bad sometimes. But—" and he faltered, "I had a good mother, and she had me christened right early."
"Aye, she was!" sobbed Tim's father.
"And," Tim went on, "and I'm so sorry for the bad! When you say the prayers, tell her I'm sorry; for, somehow I think the blessed Jesus"—and here the boy crossed himself—"the blessed Jesus will hear my mother's prayer for Tim as soon as he'd hear his own. Faither, is it wrong to think so?"
And Job, thinking of his own mother, with tears in his eyes could only say, "No, Tim, no."
The lad grew still; and kneeling, Job talked low of God's great love, as he had talked to Yankee Sam, prayed as best he could, and felt as if he had indeed committed this mother's boy into the keeping of his God, as Tim lay still and dead before him.