CHAPTER XXIX.
SUNSET.
One evening soon after that memorable Sunday, Job reached home rather late. Putting Bess in the stall, he said a tender good-night, crossed the square to the gate, and went up to the house to find it strangely still. He pushed the door ajar and saw the old man leaning on his cane in his arm-chair. His white locks were gilded by the setting sun. His spectacles lay across the open Bible on the chair at his side. Job spoke, but there was no answer. Stepping over to see if the old man was asleep, he found he was indeed sleeping—the sleep that knows no waking.
Just at sunset, as the long summer day was dying, reading that precious Psalm, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," the weary traveler on life's long journey had finished his course and gone to the rest that remaineth for the children of God. Beside him, he had laid the Book; he would need it no more—he had gone to see the Savior "face to face." He had taken off his spectacles—the eyes that had needed them here would not need them in that world to which he had gone. On his staff he leaned, In the old farmhouse, the home of many years, and gently as a little child falls asleep in its mother's arms, he had leaned on God and gone to the better Home.
A feeling of utter loneliness came over Job. The last strong tie was broken. That night he walked over the old place in the dim light, and felt that heaven was coming to be more like home than earth.
"Waal, the old man's gone," Marshall Dean said, as he drew his chair back from the table. "Mighty long wait we've had, Sally, but now we'll get ready to move."
"Move!" cried his wife, "move! Marshall Dean, where is your common sense? Don't you know the whole thing will go to that man that's no kith nor kin of his, while we poor relations has to sit and starve!"
"Mother," said a voice, "I think Job Malden has a better right to the place than we. He's been a better relation to the old man than all the Deans together, if I do say it." It was Dan who spoke.
"Yes, that's the way! Bring up a son, and hear him talk back to his mother!—that's the way it goes! Ever since ye got religion down there at that gal's grave, ye've been a regular crank!"