ame home and saw old Strong building up their
fence."

Then Jem took up the word.

"And once, some of those fellows took off the nut from his wagon, as it
was standing at the store door, and the wheel came off just as he was
going down the hill by the bridge; and if it hadn't been that his old
Jerry is as steady as a rock the old man would have been pitched into
the river."

"The village people took that up, and wanted him to prosecute them. But
he wouldn't," said David. "It was a regular case of `turning the other
cheek.' Everybody wondered, knowing old Strong's temper."

"And once they sheared old Jerry's mane and tail," said Jem. "And they
say old Strong cried like a baby when he saw him. He wouldn't have
anything done about it; but he said he'd be even with them some time.
And he was even with one of them. One day when he was in the hayfield,
Job Steele came running over to tell him that his little girl had fallen
in the barn and broken her arm and hurt her head, and he begged him to
let him have Jerry to ride, for the doctor. Then Mr Strong looked him
right in the face, and said he, `No, I can't let you have him. You
don't know how to treat dumb beasts. I'll go myself for the doctor.'
And sure enough, he unyoked his oxen from the cart, though it was
Saturday and looked like rain, and his hay was all ready to be taken in,
and went to the pasture for Jerry, and rode to the village himself, and
let the doctor have his horse, and walked home."

"And did he know that it was Job Steele who had ill-treated his horse,"
asked Frank.

"He never said so to anybody; and Job never acknowledged it. But other
people said so, and Job once told papa that Mr Strong's way of doing
`good for evil,' was the first thing that made him think that there must
be something in religion; and Mr Steele is a changed character now."

"And how did it all end with Mr Strong?" asked Frank, much interested.

"Oh, it isn't ended yet," said David. "Mr Strong is fighting against
his bad temper as hard as ever. It has ended as far as his trouble with
his neighbours is concerned. He made them see there is something in
religion more than they thought, as Job Steele said, and there is no
more trouble among them. But the old man must have had some pretty hard
battles with himself, before it came to that."

"And so old Mr Strong is a soldier, anyway," said Frank.

"Yes, and a conqueror," said Jem. "Don't you remember, `He that ruleth