he had been to and of all the people he had seen, but it was always
about salt fish that he was talking: how many barrels had gone to this
town, and how many barrels to another, and the new opening he had
discovered for salt fish in a village the name of which he had never
heard before.

Rachel's patience with Joseph was long but at last she lost patience and
said she would be glad when the last barrel of salt fish came out of the
lake, for it would not be till then that they would have time to live
their lives in peace and comfort. She gathered up her knitting and was
going to bed, but Joseph would not suffer her to go. He said he had
stories to tell her, and he fell to telling of the several preachers he
had heard in the synagogues, and his voice beguiled the evening away so
pleasantly that Rachel let her knitting drop into her lap and sat
looking at her grandson, stupefied and transported with love.

Dan's love for his son was more tender in these days than it had ever
been before, but Rachel looked back, thinking the old days were better,
when Joseph used to come from Azariah's talking about his studies. It
may be that Dan, forgetful of his jealousy, looked back to those days
gone over with a certain wistfulness. A boy is, if not more interesting,
at least more unexpected, than a young man. In the old days Dan did not
know what sort of son God had given him, but now he knew that God had
given him the son he always desired, and that Azariah's tending of the
boy's character had been kind, wise and salutary, as the flower and
fruit showed. But in the deepest peace there is disquiet, and in the
relation of his adventures Joseph had begun to display interest in
various interpretations of Scripture which he had heard in the
synagogues--true that he laughed at these, but he had met learned
heretics from Alexandria in Azariah's house. Dan often wondered if these