Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1896 — THE OLD CLERK. [ARTICLE]

THE OLD CLERK.

His Life After AH Was Not Such ■ Failure. It was noon, but the-desk nearest the window in the great library was still vacant. The clerks whispered together, and the boys who carried books to the alcoves glanced atjt uneasily. “Old Fey’ton," they said, “has been here for twenty years and never missed a day before.” One of the boys watered his flowers, for the deaf old clerk had his window full of growing plants. The chief librarian came out of his office. “Mr. Peyton is dead,” he said abruptly. “Found dead in his bed last night. It is in the morning's paper.” The library was always quiet, but a gi;eat silence filled it during that day. The boys stoped skylarking, and the clerks made no comments to each other, even a,bout the dead man. Mr. Peyton had been very deaf, ami rarely spoke to them. But as they looked at the vacant stool, and remembered the lean, bent'figure in its shabby clothes, and the kindly face, it seemed as If a strong help had suddenly dropped out of their lives. In the office the chief discussed the dead man with a director. , “Never was a life such a failure,’’ he said. . “Peyton was a fine Greek scholar. ’Hegavejhie youth and middle age to Ids book oiforeece. His whole heart wO in his work. He put into it great research and learning. 1 But Schliemann's discoveries suddenly proved all his theoHes false. Thergris his book on the shelves, worthless; covered with dust. Nobody W! sit. .tThen. he lost his hearing. lie could not even teach Greek. He was only lit for clerical work, which barely kept him alive. He had no wife nor child. A wasted life, sir! A wasted life!” "You will go to the funeral?” said his friend, rising to go out. "Most certainly!” said the chief, hotly. “Why, there is no man living for whom I ;feel as I di<i for Peyton! I could tell you things erf the lofty honor of that old fellow, his tenderness, his charity. Oh, you know a man when you live with him ‘twenty years! No clergyman ever made Christianity real to me os be did." Meanwhile the old clerk lay still and cold on his cot iu hlsTittle chamber. It was a bare room, for he had been very poor. On a shelf was his great work, which even he had not opened for years. Was it a failure Had his life failed with it? A miniature picture of his mother, a young, beautiful woman, hung over it. “Perhaps she knows why God let my work go for nothing," Peyton used to think, as he looked at her. "I don’t understand.” His Irish landlady was in the room all day. She told every one who eiune how the old clerk had cared for her and her children for years. How he had kept Mike at work, and stopped Ben from drinking. The neighbors came, hard-working, intelligent folk, and each had a story to toll of advice or help which he had given them in some strait of their Ilves. From the policeman on his round to the crippled newsboy at the corner, ho had been a friend and 'wise father to them all. , Later in the day the clerks came, and the boys from the library. They brought bunches of flowers and with tears laid them on liis br'east, thinking of kind words and deeds which were as natural to the poor clerk as his breath. They did*not notice the great work of his life on‘the shelf overhead, the work that had failed. They only knew that one of God’s helpers had gone out of the world, and mourned for him. Ills mother’s face smiled down, as It had always done, well content upon her son. And upon the dead man's face ill ere was now a strange, listening look, as-of one who was (tilled home and heard his welcome.—Youth's Companion.