Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1896-01-24
Job and the Job Shop.
Bit Out OF One or Richard Jeffrey's
Last Published Papers.


Job had a way Of shaking hands with
you with his right hand, while his left
hand was casually doing something else
10 a detached sort Of way. "Yes, sir,
and "NO, sir" and nOdding to every thing
you SAID, all so complaisant, but at the end
Of the bargain you generally found your
self few shillings, in some roundabout
manner, on the wrong side. Job had a
lot Of shut-up rooms in his house and in
his character which never seemed 10 be
opened to daylight. The caves of his cot
tage hung over and beetled like his brows,
and he had a forelOck, a regular antique
forelock, which be used TO touch with the
greatest humility. There was a long
bOugh of an elm hanging over one gable
just like the forelOck. His face was
blank like the broad end wall Of the cot
tage, which had no window-at least YOU
might think so until you Looked up and
discovered one little arrow slit, one narrow
pane, and woke with a start to the idea
that job was always up there watching
and listening. That was how he looked
out Of his one eye so intensely cunning, the
other being a wall eye-that is. the world
supposed so, as he kept it half shut, al
ways between the lights: but whether it
was really blind or not / cannot say. Job
caught rats, rabbits and moles and bought
fagots or potatoes, or fruit or rabbit-skins, or
rusty iron; wonderful how he seemed to
have command of money. 1t was done prob
ably by buying and selling almost simulta-
neously, so that the cash passed really
from one customer to another, and was
never his at all. Also he worked as la
borer, chiefly piece work; also Mrs. Job
had shop window about two feet square;
snuff and tobacco, bread and cheese, i'm
mense big round jumbles and sugar, kept
on the floor above, and reached down by
hand, when wanted, through the opening
for the ladder stairs. The front door
Jobs right hand-was always open in
summer, and the fagstones Of the floor
chalked round their edges; a clean table,
clean chairs, decent crockery, an old clock
about half an hour slow, a large hearth
with a minute fire to boil the kettle with
out heating the room. Tea was usually
at half-past three, and it is a fact that
many well-tO-do persons, as they came
along the road hot and dusty, used to drop
in and rest and take a cup-very little milk
and much guss;p. Two paths met Just
there, and people used TO step in out of a
storm of rain, sort of matched house
club.
job was somehow or fair terms with
nearly everybody, and that is a wonderful
thing in village, where everybody knows
everybody's business, and petty interests
continually cross. The strangest fellow
and the strangest ways of life, and yet |
do not believe a black mark was ever put
against him; the stiffness was all for
nothing. 1t arose, no doubt, out of the
constant and eager straining to gain lit
tie advantage and make an extra penny.
Had job been a Jew he would have been
rich. He was the exact counterpart of the
London Jew dealer, set down in the midst
of the country. Job should have been
rich. Such immense dark brown jun
bles, such eek-distenders-never any
French sweetmeats or chocolates or bon
bons to equal these. | really think could
eat one now. The pennies and four-pen-
ny bits-there were four-penny bits in
those days-that went behind that two
foot window, goodness! there was no end.
job used to chink them in a pint pot
sometimes before the company, to give
them an idea of his great boards. He al
ways tried TO impress people with his
wealth, and would talk of a fifty-pound
contract as if it were nothing TO him.
Jumbles are eternal if nothing else is.
thought then there was not such another
ShOP ~ oOb III ullNtIot. nave
found since that there is Job shop in ev-
cry village, and in every street in every
town-that is TO sag, window for jumbles
and rubbish; and if you don't know it
You may be quite sure your children do,
and spend many sly penny there. Be as
rich as you may, and give them gilded
sweetmeats at home, still they will slip
around 10 the Job shop.
1t was a pretty cottage, well backed
with trees and bushes, with a southeast
mixture of sunlight and shade, and little
touches that cannot be suggested by writ
ing. Job had not got the Semitic instinct
of keeping. The art of acquisition he
possessed to some extent-that was his
right hand but somehow the half-crowns
slipped through his unstable left hand, and
fortune was greasy fate to him. His left
hand was too cunning for him; it wanted
to manage things too cleverly. If it had
only had the Semitic grip, digging the nails
into the flesh to hold tight each separate
coin, he would have been village rich. The
great secret is the keeping. Finding is by
no means keeping. Job did not flourish
in his old days; the people changed round
about. Job is gone, and l think every
one of that cottage is either dead or moved.
Empty.