This bit of fatherly counsel was a help to the boy.

“I’ve got a book here that I want you to read,” Abe went on.  “It is the Life of Henry Clay.  Take it home and read it carefully and then bring it back and tell me what you think of it.  You may be a Henry Clay yourself by and by.  The world has something big in it for every one if he can only find it.  We’re all searching—­some for gold and some for fame.  I pray God every day that He will help me to find my work—­the thing I can do better than anything else—­and when it is found help me to do it.  I expect it will be a hard and dangerous search and that I shall make mistakes.  I expect to drop some apples on my way.  They’ll look like gold to me, but I’m not going to lose sight of the main purpose.”

When Harry got home he found Sarah sewing by the fireside, with Joe and Betsey playing by the bed.  Samson had gone to the woods to split rails.

“Any mail?” Sarah asked.

“No mail,” he answered.

Sarah went to the window and stood for some minutes looking out at the plain.  Its sere grasses, protruding out of the snow, hissed and bent in the wind.  In its cheerless winter colors it was a dreary thing to see.

“How I long for home!” she exclaimed, as she resumed her sewing by the fire.

Little Joe came and stood by her knee and gave her his oft repeated blessing: 

“God help us and make His face to shine upon us.”

She kissed him and said:  “Dear comforter!  It shines upon me every time I hear you say those words.”

The little lad had observed the effect of the blessing on his mother in her moments of depression and many times his parroting had been the word in season.  Now he returned to his play again, satisfied.

“Would you mind if I called you mother?” Harry asked.

“I shall be glad to have you do it if it gives you any comfort, Harry,” she answered.

She observed that there were tears in his eyes.

“We are all very fond of you,” she said, as she bent to her task.

Then the boy told her the history of his morning—­the talk with Bim, with the razor omitted from it; how he had met Abe and all that Abe had said to him as they sat together in the store.

“Well, Harry, if she’s such a fool, you’re lucky to have found it out so soon,” said Sarah.  “She does little but ride the pony and play around with a gun.  I don’t believe she ever spun a hank o’ yarn in her life.  She’ll get her teeth cut by and by.  Abe is right We’re always dropping our apples and feeling very bad about it, until we find out that there are lots of apples just as good.  I’m that way myself.  I guess I’ve made it harder for Samson crying over lost apples.  I’m going to try to stop it.”

Then fell a moment of silence.  Soon she said: 

“There’s a bitter wind blowing and there’s no great hurry about the rails, I guess.  You sit here by the fire and read your book this forenoon.  Maybe it will help you to find your work.”