Job had cut off the trousers to fit his wooden leg, and made a jaunty cap of the fragment. The leg itself was an extra one he had kept by him a long time, using it only on Sunday, Fast Day, Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July. It was quite a handsome stick, elegantly finished, and "well seasoned," Job declared.
"I am careful of this leg," he said, in his subdued voice, and quiet, cheerful manner, when the old clergyman joked him about it. "I always keep it on the top shelf at home, with a newspaper around it, to protect it from dust and flies. If you had the gout, sir, you couldn't be more careful of your limbs."
This was after dinner. Job was sitting in the easy-chair, out doors, where the shadow of the house sloped across the grassy lawn. The guests were forming a circle around him and the old clergyman, some sitting upon the green sward, others supporting their dignity upon chairs, and a few of the young people lying at their ease along the ground.
Mr. Kerchey, who happened to be standing near, with his arm in a swing, exerted himself to speak, and made a comparison between his useless and painful member and Job's comfortable leg.
"Get a wooden one, get a wooden one," said Job. "But, then, an arm of that sort wouldn't be so convenient as a leg. I don't think I could make shoes with only one hand. Dear me! when I think of it, how thankful I ought to be that only my leg was taken off! Supposing I had lost an arm,—or my head,—and been obliged to get a new one?"
"You wouldn't be the first man to go about with a wooden pate," said Chester. "There are plenty of block-heads in the world."
"I believe I was one when I enlisted," laughed Job.
"At least, your head was turned," quietly observed Father Brighthopes.
Anything the old clergyman said in a facetious vein was sure to raise a laugh. When silence was restored, Job replied,
"Very good! capital!"—in his soft half-whisper, and rubbing his hands. "And I am thankful that, although my head was turned then, only my leg has been turned since. My folly was cut off with my offending member, and my ambition was buried with it."