The Transformation of Job: A Tale of the High SierrasFisher, Frederick Vining
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The Transformation of Job: A Tale of the High Sierras
Fisher, Frederick Vining
Sierra Nevada (Calif. and Nev.) -- Fiction
Mounting Bess, he rode down through the vast aisle of these monarchs
of the mountains. A feeling of awe came over him. The world of Gold
City and strife and jealousy and struggle, the realm of Mary Jane and
Aunt Eliza, the world of petty humanity, seemed far away. He was alone
with God and the eternities. Silent he stood, with bared head, and
looked along the monster trunks that stretched far up, up, up, towards
where the soft blue of evening twilight seemed to rest on them for
support. He found himself praying--he could not help it. It was the
litany of his soul rising with Nature's silent prayer: "Our Father
which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." All through he said it, to
the reverent "Amen," then, putting on his hat, rode on toward the
farther grove.
[Illustration: "Grizzly Giant," Mariposa Grove.]
On he went past "Grizzly Giant," standing lone and bare, its foliage
gone, its old age come--"Grizzly Giant," which was old before Christ
was born; on by vigorous saplings, already rivals of the biggest
pines. One time-worn veteran had succumbed to some Titanic stroke of
Nature's power and lay prostrate on the ground. Decay and many
generations of little denizens of the forest had hollowed its great
trunk like some vast tunnel. Job, looking in, could see the light in
the distance.
It was big enough for Bess and him--he was sure it was; he would try
it. So, whispering lovingly to the horse, he rode into the gaping
monster, rode through the dark heart of the old giant, clear to the
other end and on into daylight. Enthused by his achievement, Job
hurried on down the road and around the great curve, to see looming up
before him "Wawona," far-famed Wawona, the portal of the silent
cathedral through whose wide-spreading base and under whose towering
form a coach and six can drive.
The sun was down, the shadows were fast gathering, the great trees
were retreating one by one in the gloom, when Job found the little
one-roomed log cabin with open door where he had planned to spend the
night. Unsaddling Bess and giving her the bag of grain on the back of
the saddle, hurriedly eating a lunch, and gathering some sticks for a
fire in the old stone fireplace in case he needed one, throwing a
drink into his mouth, Indian style, from the spring just back of the
cabin, he prepared for the night. A little later, tying Bess securely
to the nearest sapling, he closed the cabin door behind him, rolled
down the old blankets he found there, and lay down to sleep.
How dark it was! How still the world! A feeling of intense loneliness
stole over Job, and then a sense of God's nearness soothed him and he
fell asleep.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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