Before three months had passed away Ray had so fully gained the confidence of his employer by his fidelity and industry, that that gentleman hardly knew how he could get along without him. "Uncle Jacob," he said one day as he was talking with him about the boy, "you needn't pay that extra five dollars on the boy's monthly salary; he earns every bit of it, and I can better afford to give it to him than I can to have him go. He is the best help, without exception, I ever hired; and do you know he is serving the Master as faithfully as he is serving me. There is Smith, my hired man, and his two sons; they were good moral fellows, but not a bit religious when Ray came. Now all three are reading their Bibles and praying daily, and when they related their experiences last week each one admitted it was something that boy said to them that first started him on the heavenly road. Every animal on the place loves him, and he can do almost anything he wants to with them; and as for the children, any one of them will go to Ray sooner than to their mother or to me. After this, Uncle Jacob, you may pick out my help for me, if you will guarantee that they will all turn out as well."
The old gentleman shook his head slowly: "I can't do it, George, for to my mind, not one in ten is so thoroughly converted as he was; and to think so many of us were afraid the Lord hadn't done it. Guess it will be some time before the First Church people make another such mistake."
Then there came an incident in the Long Point Farm life long to be remembered, and which so endeared Ray to Mr. and Mrs. Woodhull that from that hour they regarded him as their son.
George and the twins had gone out to play. For a time they ran about the lawn in front of the house, but the gate into the lane had been left open, and the children soon discovered it. Though they had been told again and again not to go out of the yard, the temptation was great, and their little memories were short, and a bright idea crept into Georgie's brain. So he proposed to the twins: "Ray has gone up to the town, and will be back soon; let us go and meet him." The twins were nothing loth, as a ride after Old Jim, the horse, was the height of their childish ambitions, and away the three trudged down the lane.
Before a great while they grew tired and sat down to rest by a gate opening into one of the pastures. Some bright flowers in the field attracted the attention of one of the twins, and, clapping her tiny hands, she cried:
"Pitty flow's! pitty flow's! Me get 'em for mamma."
"All right," said the undaunted Georgie; "I'll get them for you." And he began to climb over the gate.
"Me come, too!" both twins screamed, and managed to squeeze their little bodies between the bars of the gate, and the three children were soon busy picking the flowers that grew in such profusion at their feet.
Now, it happened that Mr. Woodhull had arrived home but a few days before with a drove of half-wild steers, and they were turned into this pasture. The children, accustomed to the sight of cattle daily, had thought nothing of the presence of the steers, though they saw them at no great distance away. To their childish minds they were no more to be feared than the good, kind cows Ray drove back and forth from the other pasture every day.
But one of the steers, wilder and fiercer than the rest, had caught sight of the little ones, and, possibly attracted by the bright garments they wore, now came pawing and bellowing down toward them. The children cried out in their fright, and ran for the gate. But they had unconsciously wandered some distance from it, and before they had reached it the steer was upon them.