There was a Gideon Bible in one of the dresser drawers. And the tanner resumed his seat. Then whether by design or no—but I rather suspect it was by design—old “God-Damning” Gridley, as some folk called him, tried to heal the wound in the boy’s spirit by the beautiful cadences of that masterpiece of all poems:
“The Lord is my shepherd,” he began, “I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me beside the still waters,
He restoreth my soul.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death,
I will fear no evil.
For thou art with me, ...
Thy rod and Thy staff—they comfort me.”
Nathan said afterward it would be impossible to repeat the infinite pathos and tenderness in the hard-boiled old business man’s voice as he intoned the lines, his dangling slipper swinging time with the rhythm.