CHAPTER XXXI.
JOB STANTON'S MISTAKE.
There had not been many changes in the little town of Hampton since Ben left it. It was one of those quiet New England villages where life moves slowly, and a death or a marriage is an event.
Uncle Job still lived in his plain little cottage with his wife and daughter, and still plied his humble task as the village cobbler, essaying sometimes to make shoes when there were none to be repaired. There was a plat of land belonging to his house rather more than an acre in extent, but land was cheap in Hampton, and it is doubtful whether both house and lot would have brought, if thrown into the market, over one thousand dollars. Uncle Job had at one time about a hundred dollars in the savings bank in a neighboring town—a fund to draw from in an emergency—and this money with his plain home constituted his entire wealth.
Eleven hundred dollars all told! It was not a very brilliant result for forty years' labor, beginning with the days of his boyhood; but Job Stanton was not ambitious, and he actually felt well-to-do. He earned enough to supply the simple wants of his family, and had something over, and this satisfied him.
But one day a strong temptation came to Job Stanton, and he yielded to it.
A trader came riding over from a neighboring town and called on Uncle Job. The good man thought he had come to order a new pair of shoes, and felt flattered that such a dashing man should have gone so far out of his way to patronize him.
"I'm glad to see you, Mr. Richmond," he said. "Won't you set down?"
He should have said sit, but Job Stanton's educational advantages had been very limited.