It would be more just to say that it prospered in the hands of Jack March.
By hook and by crook he increased the live stock about the place. Folk were kind to one who had set so excellent an example to other farm lads, though he lacked the primal virtue of belonging to the neighborhood. He bartered pigeons for fowls, and some one gave him a sitting of eggs to "see what he would make of 'em." Master Shaw gave him a little pig, with kind words and good counsel; and Jack cleaned out the disused pigstys, which were never disused again. He scrubbed his pigs with soap and water as if they had been Christians, and the admirable animals regardless of the pork they were coming to, did him infinite credit, and brought him a profit into the bargain, which he spent on ducks' eggs, and other additions to his farmyard family.
The Shaws were very kind to him; and if Mrs. Shaw's secrets must be told, it was because Phoebe was so unchangeably and increasingly kind to him, that she sent the pretty maid (who had a knack of knowing her own mind about things) to service.
Jack March was a handsome, stalwart youth now, of irreproachable conduct, and with qualities which Mrs. Shaw particularly prized; but he was but a farm-lad, and no match for her daughter.
Jack only saw his sweetheart once during several years. She had not been well, and was at home for the benefit of "native air." He walked over the hill with her as they returned from church, and lived on the remembrance of that walk for two or three years more. Phoebe had given him her Prayer-book to carry, and he had found a dead flower in it, and had been jealous. She had asked if he knew what it was, and he had replied fiercely that he did not, and was not sure that he cared to know.
"Ye never did know much about flowers," said Phoebe, demurely, "it's red bergamot."
"I love--red bergamot," he whispered penitently. "And thou owes me a bit. I gave thee some once." And Phoebe had let him put the withered bits into his own hymn-book, which was more than he deserved.
Jack was still in the choir, and taught in the Sunday School where he used to learn. The parson's daughter had had her own way; Daddy Darwin grumbled at first, but in the end he got a bottle-green Sunday-coat out of the oak-press that matched the bedstead, and put the house-key into his pocket, and went to church too. Now, for years past he had not failed to take his place, week by week, in the pew that was traditionally appropriated to the use of the Darwins of Dovecot. In such an hour the sordid cares of the secret panel weighed less heavily on his soul, and the things that are not seen came nearer--the house not made with hands, the treasures that rust and moth corrupt not, and which thieves do not break through to steal.
Daddy Darwin died of old age. As his health failed, Jack nursed him with the tenderness of a woman; and kind inquiries, and dainties which Jack could not have cooked, came in from many quarters where it pleased the old man to find that he was held in respect and remembrance.
One afternoon, coming in from the farmyard, Jack found him sitting by the kitchen-table as he lad left him, but with a dread look of change upon his face. At first he feared there had been "a stroke," but Daddy Darwin's mind was clear and his voice firmer than usual.