The anxious old man had no heart to joke. He had been to the
poorhouse, and had escaped from it into freedom. His whole nature rebelled
at the thought of returning. And yet he tried to school himself to look
forward to it bravely. "If it is the Lord's will," he told himself, "I will
have to bow to it."
Meanwhile those who employed Elnathan were finding him a very different boy
from the slow, lagging Elnathan they had known. If he was sent on an
errand, he made speed. "Here! get the gold out of your legs," he would say
to himself. If he sprouted potatoes for a grocer in his cellar, "There's
gold in your fingers, El," he would say. "Get it out as quick as you can."
He now worked more hours in a day than he had ever worked before, so that
he was too tired to talk much at meals, and too sleepy in the evening. But
there was a light in his eyes when they rested on Mr. Lightenhome that made
the old man's heart thrill.
"Elnathan would stand by me if he could," he would say to himself. "He's a
good boy. I must not worry him."
A month after Elnathan had begun his great labor of love, an astonishing
thing happened to him.
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