“Amos!” Falcontent called.
“Sir? I am here.”
“What they ringing the bells for?”
“It is Christmas mornin’, Sir.”
Falcontent stood staring into the mist of moonlight below. “I guess you better leave me alone for a little while, Amos,” he said, presently, without turning. “I—want to be alone.” After that Falcontent lifted his face to the sky and prayed. It should astonish no one. Many a good man has done the like of it since the world began....
Well, what miracle? What amazing transformation? Falcontent looked fit: that was true. The same old Falcontent! the Falcontent of his heartiest days. Back in New York now, still a bit lean and brown with desert travel. To the eye—to the ear—to the heart of his intimates—he was the same man he had been at his best. He was selling shoes for Groot & McCarthy, too, in vast quantities, in Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. There were some little omissions of behavior, to be sure, as he went about. They were not obtrusive: they earned—they deserved—no comment. A big, ruddy, big-hearted man—that was James Falcontent: a clean, kindly, hopeful, energetic, merry fellow, given to no meanness, to no greed, to no unworthy pride, to no dishonor whatsoever. And he was sane according to every goodly notion of the times. It would have alarmed him—shamed and grieved him—to discover any symptom of peculiarity. Not an alienist of virtuous reputation could have discovered in Falcontent the least divergence from the straight line of normality. Nor could a surgeon with due regard for the ethics of his profession have found in Falcontent any honest employment for his knife; nor could a devoted practitioner of internal medicine have supplied a need of Falcontent’s hearty body. Falcontent was a robust fellow. Falcontent was in vigorous health. What need had Falcontent of a physician or a surgeon?
Falcontent’s soul? Oh, yes, Falcontent had a soul—and had in some way established peace with it!
FOOTNOTES:
[10] By permission of Dr. E. H. Duncan and Harper & Brothers.