Jim Weeks," and in a surprisingly short time he was strong enough to be
taken home.

When he first saw his grandfather he was dimly conscious of a change in
him, and as he grew stronger and better able to observe closely he became
surer of it. Jonathan had been a young old man when Jim went away; now he
looked every one of his seventy-three years, and instead of the tireless
energy of former times Jim noted a listlessness hard to understand.

One night after both had gone to bed Jim heard his grandfather groping his
way down the stairs and out upon the veranda. He listened intently until
he heard the creak of the rocking chair, which told him that the old man
was visiting again with old friends and old fancies. The slow rhythm
lulled Jim into a doze, and then into sleep. He awakened with a start; his
pioneer blood made him a light sleeper, and he knew that the old man could
not have got upstairs and past his door without waking him. "He must have
gone to sleep down there," thought Jim, and rising he went down to the
veranda. Jonathan had gone to sleep, but the black cob pipe was clenched
between rigid jaws; his sightless eyes were open and seemed to be looking
at the stars.

At first Jim felt that sails, helm, and compass had been swept clean
away, but he was strong enough to recover his bearings quickly. His
grandfather's death marked an end and a beginning, and just as a needle
when a magnet is taken away swings unerringly into the line of force of
the original magnet, the earth, so Jim's life swung to a new direction.
There was no one whose life could direct or influence his, and alone he
started on what business men of the next generation knew as his career.

The war had lessened but not destroyed Jonathan's fortune, and it went