Enoch was called in many times to give counsel which seemed to gain from his masculinity what it might be supposed to lack by reason of his ignorance concerning the ailments and accomplishments of the small stranger who held the heart of the community in his tiny purple fist. It was to Enoch that the young mother brought her small woes, and it was with Enoch that she left them.
The song of the hay-balers and the whir of the threshing-machine had died out of the valley, and the raisin-making had come on. The trays were spread in the vineyards, and the warm white air was filled with the fruity smell of the grapes, browning and sweetening beneath the October sun.
One drowsy afternoon Enoch was in the back room of the store, weighing barley and marking the weight on the sacks. Suddenly there was a quick step, and a voice in the outer room, and the old man turned slowly, with the brush in his hand, and confronted a man in the doorway.
"Jerry!"
"Yes, uncle, here I am; slightly disfigured, but still in the ring. How's the market? Long on barley, I see. I"—he broke off suddenly, and assumed an air of the deepest dejection. "I've had a great deal of trouble since I saw you, uncle. I've lost my wife."
He turned to the window and pretended to look through the cobwebbed glass.
"She went off very sudden, but she was conscious to the last."
Enoch stood still and slowly stirred the paint in the paint-pot until his companion turned and caught the glance of his keen blue eye.
"Does thee think she will stay lost, Jerry?" he asked quietly.
The young fellow came close to Enoch's side.