Frederick Vining Fisher

“ Job Malden was fast growing into manhood. It was in those long winter days at the Yellow Jacket that the heart came back to him and somehow he found himself thinking of Jane Reed. The bitter memory of the folly of those days last winter at the Frost Creek school still haunted him, and yet the hardness had gone out of his soul. He had no right to think of Jane, he felt; he had forfeited all claim to her affection. But somehow the old love came back, and he longed to go to her and be forgiven. What a true girl she was!—a child of the mountains. ”

“ That hour on Glacier Point should be unveiled to no human eye, but remain locked in the chambers of his soul, known only to God and her who waited yonder for his coming.
It was near noon when the judge ascended the bench. The hubbub of voices ceased, the case was called, the rear door opened, and, led in by the sheriff, handcuffed and guarded, with calm, white face, yet never faltering in step or look, Job Malden walked across the floor to the prisoner's seat, while the crowd gazed in curiosity, that soon changed to awe and reverence, at that grave face, so deeply marked with scars of grief. ”

“ It was nearer dawn than midnight when the tired team, which had been slowly creeping up the mountain road for hours, turned into the lane above the mill and waited for their owner to swing open the gate which barred the way to the private road leading through the oak pasture to Pine Tree Ranch and home. It was one of those matchless nights that come only in the mountains, when the world is flooded with a soft, silvery light and the great trees stand out transfigured against the sky, amid a silence profound and awe-inspiring. ”

“ Job stayed behind as the stage rattled down the side of the mountain, tethered Bess by a big cedar, lay in a grassy nook and looked down, down, where the Merced abutted the base of El Capitan and tumbled down the narrow cañon that leads from the valley far below to the plains. All the reverence of his soul, all that was noble and lofty in him, rose as he gazed upon the scene. The littlenesses, the meannesses of the world, were left far behind. Like Moses of old, he was in the cleft of the mountains and the glory of Jehovah lay stretched out before him. ”

“ These well-worn boards are holy ground. Here Andrew Malden lived; by that lounge he became a changed man; from that old rocker he went home to God. By yonder gate I first met her whom you all knew and loved; to this home, torn and crushed by life's troubles, I have fled like a child at dusk to its mother's arms, and in these rooms God has comforted and strengthened my heart. I love you all. Not always have we seen alike; you have not always loved me; but, some day, we shall know as we are known; some day we shall see face to face.
"I love these old mountains. ”

“ Dan or Job—which should it be? In the doorway she stood dreaming till the sun was between the tree-tops, and looked straight down the trail. All day at her tasks she dreamed on. Twice she took her bonnet and thought she would go to Job; then she hung it away again. There they stood at the doorway of her soul—Dan, crippled, helpless, selfish; a poor, wild, wandering boy. Job, strong, brave, the soul of honor, the manliest of men, a Christian in all that word means in a young man's life—her ideal. ”

“ So the days of that autumn came to Job Malden. The beauty begotten of pain crept into his face. The mantle of silence and peace hid deep the scars of grief. He never talked of the past—no man ever dared broach it. The children at their play in the twilight stopped and huddled close as they saw a dark form climb the graveyard hill, and wondered who it could be. Yet he did not live apart from the world. Never had Gold City seen more of him; never did children love a playmate so much as he who took them all into his heart. ”

“ Mounting Bess, he rode down through the vast aisle of these monarchs of the mountains. A feeling of awe came over him. The world of Gold City and strife and jealousy and struggle, the realm of Mary Jane and Aunt Eliza, the world of petty humanity, seemed far away. He was alone with God and the eternities. Silent he stood, with bared head, and looked along the monster trunks that stretched far up, up, up, towards where the soft blue of evening twilight seemed to rest on them for support. He found himself praying—he could not help it. ”

“ Up at the old ranch, the gray-haired, feeble owner sat by the fire watching the crackling logs and the flames; sat and thought of the years that were gone. Visions of childhood mingled with visions of heaven; the murmur of voices long silent with the words, as Job read them aloud: "In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you." Tony still sang at his chores, Hans was still at the barn, Bess still neighed in the stable, Shot still barked at the door. But the old home could never be quite the same to the brave, manly fellow who strode in and out across its threshold. ”

“ It was late that night when Job left the camp ground, flung himself across Bess' back and started home. The stars never looked down on a happier boy. The burden, the hate, the bitterness in his heart, were all gone. A holy love, an exaltation of soul, an awakening of all that is best in a manly life, stirred him. The past was gone; "old things had passed away and all things had become new." The world was the same. Dan, with all his meanness, was in it. The saloon doors were open, the gamblers still sat at midnight at the Monte Carlo. Grizzly county had not changed, but he had. ”

“ Then he thought of Jane—where was she? Job looked furtively about, but could not see her. A little unrest filled his soul.
"No gold can buy so much pleasure for your poor heart, no diamond is rarer, no relic brings back sweeter memories, no friend sticks closer, than Jesus. The flood of time may sweep friends beyond your reach, the mighty Sierras may crumble to dust, old earth may sink into space, and you be alone with the stars and eternity, but it is written, 'I will not leave thee nor forsake thee.' Jesus will be with you for time and eternity. ”

“ The preacher, as he looked down on that audience, was amazed. He had seen no such scene in this old church since, with faint heart, he had first stood in its plain pulpit as pastor. The walls were lined with all the representative characters of the town, good and bad, rich and poor; merchants, bar-keepers, politicians and miners. In the center the old-time church-goers sat. Up the front, filling every inch of space, the starched and well-washed youngsters wriggled and grinned and sang without fear, as hymn after hymn was announced. ”

“ Dan was looking as if impressed with the extreme justice of things, when Job arose and motioned them into silence. There he stood in the center, stood and looked into each face.
"Wait, Mr. Lawyer," he said. "I have a word before you go. Neighbors, friends, I have something to say. Fifteen years ago, the man whose last will we have heard to-day carried me, a helpless orphan, across the threshold of yonder door. From that night until now, I have called this home. Fifteen years! What changes they have brought! Dan and I were little boys; now we are men. ”

“ Back and forth by the barns Tony slowly moves. By the gate an old dog lies waiting. On the porch a frail cripple sits in the twilight and looks down the road. But the one they wait for will never come. Across the years of busy action and world-wide service he treads the path that leads to "palms of victory, crowns of glory." In the joy of service he is finding the peace which the world cannot give nor take away. In self-forgetfulness he is growing daily into His likeness, until he shall at last awake in His image, satisfied. ”

“ The sun was well up the next morning when the procession of buckboards was ready to start for Gold City. Andrew Malden and the shrewd fellow had gone an hour before, the rest were off, and only the boorish Devonshire was left to ride down with Tony. Job stood, with heart palpitating and conscience goading him, down by the big pasture gate to let them through. All his peace of mind was gone. A few moments and the crime would be carried out to its end, and he would be equally guilty with the avaricious old man who was the nearest one he had in all the world. ”

“ Dan Dean shrank down behind the post when the jury filed in. Job sat with a far-away look in his eyes. Men, gazing at him, were reminded of pictures of the old saints.
The preliminaries were over, and the foreman of the jury rose to give the verdict. Men held their breath. Women grew pale and trembled. In a clear voice he said it: "Guilty!" For a moment the hush lasted; then Andrew Malden fainted, Tim's father cried, "My God! My God!" a storm of tears swept over the throng, and Job sat motionless, while a look of great peace came into his face and in his soul he murmured, "It is finished!" ”

“ That bright September morning, gayly attired with new sombrero and red bandanna above his white outing-shirt, astride Bess, Job rode slowly up the Chichilla mountain on his way to visit those giant trees. Up by "Doc" Trainer's place, over the smooth, hard county turnpike, where the toll-road, ever winding round and round the mountain-side, climbs on through the passes of the live-oak belt to the scraggly pines of the low hills, on to the endless giant forests of the cloud-kissed summits, the young horseman made his way. ”

“ The lonely, homeless boy on the "Palace" doorstep had touched a heart that most men thought too hard to be broken in this world or the next.
Andrew Malden was not a bad man, if he was hard. The outward vices which had ruined most men who had come to Gold City to gain the world and lose their souls, never touched him. That craving for excitement, the natural heritage of hot-headed youth, which often in that old mining camp lasted long after the passionate days of young life and lit the glazed eyes of age with a wild, unnatural fire, never seemed a part of his nature. ”

“ The rushing stream, whose music is like some far-off echo; the strange deserted village; the narrow line of dark rails up the mountain-side through the snow; the gloomy, cavernous tunnels; the setting sun in the west gilding all with its transfiguring touch—these give a scene worthy the brush of a master-artist, who has never yet found his way over the Pine Mountain trail to the South Fork and Wright's Cove Mine. ”

“ The night that Bess came home saddleless and riderless, with the white foam on her, and when he searched till near morning, to at last find Job stretched in a stupor by the wayside down the Chichilla road, he thought the boy's after story was true—that story of a frightened runaway—and little knew it was Pete Wilkins' whisky that had thrown him.
Ah! it was only yesterday the old man had said, "She was a traitor, and so is the boy. I have loved him, fed him, sheltered him, and yet all he cares for is to get my money some day. The world's all alike!" ”

“ Dan was drifting further and further into the downward life; and yet, strange to say, it had lost its charm for him. That night when the election failed and Col. Dick scored him for not doing his best, he parted company with the Colonel and the Monte Carlo. More and more strongly two passions ruled his life. One was love for Jane Reed; the love of a man conscious of his own utter badness for that holy life he secretly envies and outwardly scorns. The other was hatred for Job Malden, who, ever since he came upon the stage in the long ago, had stood between Daniel Dean and all his ambitions. ”

“ Indian Bill, the rheumatic old native trapper whose family had perished at the massacre of the Yosemite some years before, and who ever since had lived in a little cabin on the edge of the Gulch, said it was the biggest in two hundred moons.
When Job, shivering and chattering, looked out of the little, narrow, cheerless upstairs room which he called his own, he found himself apparently in the first story. He gazed on the endless drifts of snow that rolled away in a silent sea over barn and fences, with only the shaggy, white-bearded pines shaking their faces at him above the limitless white. ”

“ He looked with contempt on men who lost themselves in its meshes. But he was a hard man, the people said, and selfishness and a cold heart were far worse vices in the eyes of the generous-hearted, rough miners who came and went among these hills, than what the polished, cold, calculating money-getters of the far-off city counted as sin. So Andrew Malden was more of a sinner in the estimation of Gold City than Yankee Sam. Perhaps the ethics of that mining camp were truer than the world thinks. Perhaps he who sins against society is worse than he who sins against self. ”

“ We've got to do Alaska in this trip, or we'll never hear the end of it when we get back East. Nothing like doing the world, young man," said she, as she adjusted her bonnet and eye-glasses and hurried off to the office, where he heard her an hour later lamenting, "Sarah Bell, we have got to stay a whole precious day in that Cemet'ry before we can go back!"
It was late when the babble of voices died away, the stars kept watch through the tall pines of Wawona, and Job fell asleep to the piping of the frogs in the pond back of the hotel and the pawing of horses in the long barn across the square. ”

“ It was a young, fresh, boyish face that looked into Job's as the speaker uttered these words. Just such a bright, athletic, noble fellow as every true boy secretly wishes to be. He caught Job's attention and held it.
This was a very different thing from what he had thought sermons to be. The young man talked of life here, not hereafter; he showed how a man may live in this world and yet live a lost life; have gold and lands, and yet lose all love and hope and peace and manhood. He pictured the man who gains wealth and grows hard and loveless, and Job thought of Andy Malden ”

“ As pretty as a picture, always dressed in fine white, with a flower at her throat as a brooch, and no end of wild ones on her desk, Miss Bright sat at the head of the school room through the day, laughing merrily now over the mistakes of some awkward boy, now singing kindergartèn songs with a class of wee tots, and then, after the smaller ones were dismissed, holding Jane and Job spellbound as they stood by her desk and heard her talk of her college days and 'Frisco, lovely 'Frisco, and the glories of entomology, and the delights of philosophy—names which Job knew must mean something grand. ”