coming to be more like home than earth.

* * * * *

"Waal, the old man's gone," Marshall Dean said, as he drew his chair
back from the table. "Mighty long wait we've had, Sally, but now we'll
get ready to move."

"Move!" cried his wife, "move! Marshall Dean, where is your common
sense? Don't you know the whole thing will go to that man that's no
kith nor kin of his, while we poor relations has to sit and starve!"

"Mother," said a voice, "I think Job Malden has a better right to the
place than we. He's been a better relation to the old man than all the
Deans together, if I do say it." It was Dan who spoke.

"Yes, that's the way! Bring up a son, and hear him talk back to his
mother!--that's the way it goes! Ever since ye got religion down there
at that gal's grave, ye've been a regular crank!"

The hot words stung, but Dan remained silent.

"I don't care, ma," said little Tom, "I think Job's nice, and if he's
boss I'm going up there every day."

"Yes, and he'll kick ye out, or do the way he did with Dan at the
Yellow Jacket--set a parcel of soldiers on to ye, just as if ye was a
dog!" sharply retorted Mrs. Dean.

Dan could keep silent no longer. "Mother, what right have you to talk
that way? I deserved all I got at the Yellow Jacket. And I shall never
forget that when my leg was hurt and the surgeon took it off, Job came
in and nursed me. No better man ever walked the earth than Job
Malden, and not one of the Dean family is worth mentioning in the
same breath."

* * * * *

The mother cut her bread in frowning silence, the father took his hat
and left the room, while little Ross said:

"Job brought me a lot of the prettiest flowers once when I was sick! I
wish he owned all the flowers, he's so good to me!"

Just then Baby Jim climbed into his mother's lap and said, "What's
'dead,' mamma? Where's Uncle Andy gone? Is you goin' there?" And the
peevish, selfish woman took the child in her arms and went out on the
sunny porch, wondering if indeed she was ever going there; whether
this something which, after all, she knew had so changed Dan for the
better, was for her.

Down at Squire Perkins' that night, a Chinese woman, kneeling by her
kitchen chair, prayed that riches might not conquer Job Malden, who by
the grace of God had stood so many of life's tests.

On the streets of Gold City they debated over the estate, wondering if
Andrew Malden had l