helping others. It was a
good sight for John to see.

"He'll do now," said he to himself. "He has fallen into good hands. I
only wish I might leave him here for a day or two. It would set him up
again."

"Be you brothers?" said the farmer, as he caught the satisfied look with
which John regarded the lad sitting at his ease among them.

"We are fellow-countrymen," said John, "and that makes brothers of us
here in a strange land."

The evening was one to be remembered by these brothers, who had been
strangers less than a month ago. A good many times in the course of his
life has John told the story of that first evening in Jacob Strong's
house. He has forgotten many things, and times, and places better worth
remembering, perhaps, but he will never forget his first coming into
that long, low room, through whose open windows shone in the afterglow
from the west, when the first heavy shower was over.

There was a wide fireplace, and on high, brass andirons a bright wood
fire was burning. Over it was a mantel-shelf on which were arranged
candlesticks of brass and snuffer-trays, and various other things quaint
and pretty. There was a tall clock in the corner, and a tall
looking-glass between the windows. There was a secretary in another
corner, with a book-case above it, and some pictures on the walls. The
table was laid for tea, and the room and all that was in it was perfect
in neatness. Grandma Strong was there waiting for them, and the
farmer's wife and his "little daughter," as Jacob Strong called a
slender girl of sixteen, who was leaning shyly on her grand mother's
chair. He might well remember it, and his friend also, for it was a
good day for them both which brought them there, and Jacob Strong and
his household proved true friends to them.

Jacob Strong! John told his mother long afterward, that if the Bible
had been searched from end to end to find a good name for a good man,
none better than that could have been found for their new friend. Not
that either of the patriarch's names fitted him exactly. He was not a
"supplanter," and though he was on the right side, as no one who knew
him well would deny or even doubt, yet if one had wished to tell his
character in two words, it would not have been as "a soldier of God"
that one would have described him. But he was in many ways very like
the patriarch, as we see him in the Bible story. He was wise, he was
wily, he was patient. He could bide hi