"I hope you were contented to return to shoe-making?" remarked the clergyman, laughing.
"Well—yes," replied Job, in his cheerful half whisper. "I did not find the change so difficult as many would. I can say, truthfully, that, with me, there was but one step between the battle-field and the shop."
Father Brighthopes took time to consider the enormity of this far-reaching jest, and replied,
"Well, brother; I trust you get along pretty well now."
"Passable, passable. Better than I should, if I was a lamp-lighter or a penny-postman. I wouldn't make a very good ballet-dancer, either. Do you think I would?"
Father Brighthopes replied that, in his experience, he had learned to regard a contented shoemaker as more blessed—even if he had lost a leg—than a miserly millionaire, or an ambitious monarch.
"I've had considerable to try me, though," said Job. "Two fine boys, 'at would now be able to take care of me and the family, got the small-pox both 't a time; one was nineteen, t'other fifteen; I'd rather lost a dozen legs, if I'd had 'em," he murmured, thoughtfully. "Then I've one darter that's foolish and sickly. She an't able to do nothin', and it's took more 'n my pension was wo'th to doctor her."
"You have seen affliction: thank God, my friend, that you have come through it so nobly!" exclaimed Father Brighthopes, smiling, with tears of sympathy running down his cheeks.
He patted Job's shoulder kindly; and the poor fellow could not speak, for a moment, his heart was touched so deeply.
"It's all for the best, I s'pose," said he, coughing, and drawing his shirt-sleeve across his eyes.