Job Haskers

“ Horsehair had lowered his gun and was gazing fixedly at the teacher. "Say, you ain't walking in your sleep, are ye?" he questioned, abruptly.
"No, no—I—er—I am sure I am not," stammered Job Haskers, yet in secret he pinched himself to make certain. "I was—er—in bed, and I thought I felt an earthquake—the bed swayed, and I heard a cry——" The teacher stopped suddenly. "Perhaps it was those rascally boys!" he cried, abruptly. ”

“ They would not have a chance to graduate that coming June.
“I’ll not argue the point, Morr. I’ll give you a week, starting to-morrow. When you come to the classroom I will show you just what you have to make up.” Job Haskers looked around the room. “Now, then, remember, I want less noise here.” And so speaking, he turned on his heel and walked away.
For a moment there was silence, as the boys looked at each other and listened to the sounds of Mr. Haskers’s retreating footsteps. Then Phil made a face and punched one of the bed pillows, savagely. ”

“ He tried to hold the horse back, but could not, and in a twinkling he was dragged over the dashboard and landed head first in the snow of the road. Then the horse, no doubt startled at the unusual proceedings, started off on a trot, dragging the teacher after him.
"Whoa, I say! Whoa there!" spluttered Job Haskers. "Whoa!" and he tried to regain his feet, only to plunge down once more, this time on his face. Then he let go the reins and the horse trotted off, coming to a halt near the campus gateway.
If ever there was an angry man that individual was Job Haskers. ”

“ Haskers; only remember you have young gentlemen to deal with. I presume they thought it only a harmless prank."
"I'll prank them, if I catch them," growled the assistant to himself, as he walked away.
Word had been passed around among the boys, and when the roll was called all were ready to "face the music."
"Who knows anything about the proceedings of last night?" began Job Haskers, gazing around fiercely.
There was a pause, and then a rather dull boy named Carson arose.
"Great Cæsar! Is he going to blab on us?" murmured Phil. ”

“ You tried to get others into trouble to hide your own tracks. This plot will not work with me. In the morning you must clean this apartment thoroughly, or I will punish you severely!" And having thus delivered himself Job Haskers stalked off, leaving Plum, Poole, and Jasniff the maddest students Oak Hall had ever known. ”

“ But he was very angry, and the discovery of the ice and snow in the cutter, later on, did not tend to make his temper any sweeter.
"I'll find out who did this!" he muttered to himself. "And when I do, I'll fix him, as sure as my name is Job Haskers." But he never did find out; and there the incident came to an end. The boys thought they had had fun enough for one night, and so did not watch for the teacher's return to Oak Hall. ”

“ Then the cauldron is tapped, and once more the stream of turquoise flows forth, until the ladle is empty and the moulds are filled to the brim with liquid fire. Such was the work in which Job Hesketh was engaged, and it absorbed him body and soul from year's end to year's end.
Job was a giant in stature and strength. Born on a farm in the very heart of the Yorkshire wolds, he had drifted, as a boy of sixteen, to Leeds, and had found the life and activities of the forge as congenial as those of the farmstead. ”

“ Yes, Job was talking. He did his best. He expressed the utmost sympathy with the wrongs of every man, and reminded them that they had no truer friend in the Yellow Jacket than he. He had nursed their sick, buried their dead, had been one of them in all the struggles of their lives. Voice after voice in the crowd said, "That's so! Hear! Hear!" "Hurrah fer the lad!" cried another. "Three cheers for the little parson!"
Then he talked to them of the strike, and said every man had a right to quit work and the Union to strike, but no man or Union had the right to starve their fellow-beings ”

“ I’ll bide here till ye come back.’
Sharpe paused for a moment or two, staring at him with evident displeasure, and then went forward. Presently his tall form towered above the bushes, and he looked down into the pit beneath.
After a long and steady gaze he returned to Job, took him by the shoulder, and propelled him to a safe distance from the tantalising spot. Job, when finally released, examined him with great curiosity; but the farmer’s face, though a little redder than usual, in consequence probably of his recent exertions, was stolid as ever. ”

“ Leo, bless him!—why, it seems but the other day that I used to lead him about the streets with a penny whip;—and if ever you get out of this place— which, as father didn't allude to you, perhaps you may—I hope you will think kindly of my whitened bones, and never have anything more to do with Greek writing on flower-pots, sir, if I may make so bold as to say so."
"Come, come, Job," I said seriously, "this is all nonsense, you know. You mustn't be silly enough to go getting such ideas into your head. We've lived through some queer things, and I hope that we may go on doing so." ”

“ He had every other Sunday to himself by the extreme favor of the "boss," on whose own calendar Sunday never came, and who could not see why it should on any one's else.
At first, Job left the narrow, well-worn streets, always, it seemed to him, crowded with an endless procession of dirty, pale-faced, muscular, rough men going to and from shifts; left them far behind and tramped over to the Frost Creek school, redolent with peculiar memories, to the afternoon service. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hacket thoughtfully repeated the words from Job with a most impressive intonation.
He passed the letter back to me and said:
"All true! I have seen it sinking into the bones o' the young and I have seen it lying down with the aged in the dust o' their graves. It is a big book—the one we are now opening. God help us! It has more pages than all the days o' your life. Just think o' your body, O brave and tender youth! It is like a sponge. How it takes things in an' holds 'em an' feeds upon 'em! A part o' every apple ye eat sinks down into yer blood an' bones. Ye can't get it out. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was true he was sleeping in wet clothes, but the night was now so warm that I thought (and so did Job) that they were not likely to injure a man of his unusually vigorous constitution. Besides, we had no dry ones at hand.
Presently the moon went down, and left us floating on the waters, now only heaving like some troubled woman's breast, with leisure to reflect upon all that we had gone through and all that we had escaped. Job stationed himself at the bow, Mahomed kept his post at the tiller, and I sat on a seat in the middle of the boat close to where Leo was lying. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Job's mother was Ann Senior, of Beckfoot, near Ilkley; he was an illegitimate child. His father, a man named Hacksworth, left him a little money when he died. Job grew up a spruce, active young man, very strong, and not devoid of good looks. He was employed as a labourer by the farmers round Ilkley; but afterwards went to live at Whitkirk, near Leeds. He there fell into disorderly ways, drank, and became careless in his dress and dirty in his habits. Yet he was a good workman, and when he returned to Ilkley he was readily engaged by the farmers to plough, mow, and reap for them. ”

“ I said, "you don't think that you are going to die because you dreamed you saw your old father; if one dies because one dreams of one's father, what happens to a man who dreams of his mother-in-law?"
"Ah, sir, you're laughing at me," said Job; "but, you see, you didn't know my old father. If it had been anybody else—my Aunt Mary, for instance, who never made much of a job—I should not have thought so much of it; but my father was that idle, which he shouldn't have been with seventeen children, that he would never have put himself out to come here just to see the place. No, sir ”

“ In a moment it will be gone!" said Ayesha.
I looked. She was right. The sun was passing below the level of the hole or cleft in the precipice through which the ray reached us.
"If you stop there, Job, you will die alone," I called; "the light is going."
"Come, be a man, Job," roared Leo; "it's quite easy."
Thus adjured, the miserable Job, with a most awful yell, precipitated himself face downwards on the plank—he did not dare, small blame to him, to try to walk it, and commenced to draw himself across in little jerks, his poor legs hanging down on either side into the nothingness beneath. ”

“ Yea, all things live for ever, though at times they sleep and are forgotten.”
The morning came at last, but when it came I found that I was too stiff and sore to rise. About seven Job arrived, limping terribly, and with his face the colour of a rotten apple, and told me that Leo had slept fairly, but was very weak. Two hours afterwards Billali (Job called him “Billy-goat,” to which, indeed, his white beard gave him some resemblance, or more familiarly, “Billy”) came too, bearing a lamp in his hand, his towering form reaching nearly to the roof of the little chamber. ”

“ Interest reached its climax when, after supper, three buckboards, loaded with the guests heavy in more ways than one, started down toward Mormon Bar and the Pine Mountain road.
It was quite late when the loud barking of dogs announced their arrival at Pine Tree Ranch, and it was still later when Job crept up to the hay-loft over the stable to find a substitute for his cosy bed, which he had surrendered to another "H'english gentleman," with an emphasis on the last word. The boy was in a quandary to know what it all meant. He felt an inward sense of disgust. ”

“ Job thought of Jane, but at once said to himself that it could not be she—she was back at Camp Comfort by this time. A little later, Bill said the horse was now riderless and standing by a tree, and that a bit of something white was moving on the face of the cliff.
Just then they heard a terrible roar, and both forgot all else in the queer sensation that seized them. All the world seemed to sway before Job's eyes. The mountains below, where the river bends, seemed a thing of life. ”

“ Isn't it grand, Job, to feel we are His and He will always love us, and that He is so near us? It seems as if I heard His step now and He was standing by us. I know He is. I like that hymn we sang Communion Sunday—'Fade, fade, each earthly joy, Jesus is mine.'"
A moment they sat in silence, while the sun transformed the far-off glacier into a lake of glory, and then sank behind El Capitan for the night. Then Job spoke. A long while he talked. The memories of childhood; the sweet face that grew strangely white in the city of the plains and left him; the early days at Pine Tree Ranch ”

“ 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 ”

“ You're a great credit to your sex;" and Mary Jane, pounding the poor mare [Pg 25] vigorously, yelled, "G'lang! Get up! We'll never get home!"
It was nearer sunset than it should have been when Job reached the sign-board far up the toll-road that read, "To the Big Trees." Putting spurs to Bess, he galloped on at a rapid pace for a mile or more, when he became conscious that the sugar pines and cedars were giving place to strange trees which had loomed up before him so gradually that he was not aware the far-famed Sequoias, the giants of the forest, were all about him. ”

“ Slade's reasoning. Captain Jacob caught up with Finland, just as the latter was forced to slacken his pace to climb the hill. With much difficulty he persuaded him to abandon his intention.
"But I will have it out with him," said Finland, fiercely.
"You'll only get yourself into a mess," said Jacob, soothingly; "better let the old man see the job through. I know Johnson well--none better. He came home in my ship with the girl from Koiau, so if any one can straighten him out, Jacob Shackel's the man. 'Sides, we want money, you fool!"
"You'll not get it from Johnson. He's as poor as a rat." ”