The bishop of Mentz, descended from a wheelwright, covered his house with spokes, hammers and wheels; and the king of Sicily, in honor of his father, who was a potter, refused to drink out of any thing but an earthen vessel. So Joseph was not ashamed of his early surroundings, or of his old-time father, or of his brothers. When the latter came up from the famine-stricken land to get corn from the Egyptian king’s corn crib, Joseph, instead of chiding them for the way they had maltreated and abused him, sent them back with wagons, which King Pharaoh furnished, laden with corn; and old Jacob, the father, was brought back in the very same wagons, that Joseph, the son, might see him and give him a comfortable home all the rest of his days. Well, I hear the wagons, the king’s wagons, rumbling down in front of the palace. On the outside of the palace, to see the wagons depart, stands Pharaoh in royal robes; and beside him stands Prime Minister Joseph, with a chain of gold around his neck, and on his hand a ring given by Pharaoh to him, so that any time he wanted to stamp the royal seal upon a document he could do so conveniently. Wagon after wagon rolls on down from the palace, laden with corn, meat, changes of raiment and every thing that could aid a famine-stricken people. I see aged Jacob, one day, seated in the front of his house. He is probably thinking of his absent boys (for sons, however old they get, are never to a father any more than boys); and while he is seated there, he sees dust arising, and he hears wagons rumbling, and he wonders what is coming now, for the whole land had been smitten with the famine, and was in silence. But after a while the wagons have come near enough, and he sees his sons on the wagons, and before they come quite up, they shout: “Joseph is yet alive!” The old man faints dead away. I do not wonder at it. The boys now tell the story how that the boy, the long-absent Joseph, has got to be the first man in the Egyptian palace. While they unload the wagons, the wan and wasted creatures in the neighborhood come up and ask for a handful of corn, and they are satisfied. One day the wagons are brought up, for Jacob, the old father, is about to go to see Joseph in the Egyptian palace. You know, it is not a very easy thing to transplant an old tree; and Jacob has hard work to get away from the place where he has lived so long. He finally bids good-by to the old place, and leaves his blessing with the neighbors; and then his sons steady him, while he, still determined to help himself, gets into the wagon--stiff, old and decrepit.