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Several of Jotham's neighbors assisted him in the search. Where the oxen had gone or what had become of them was a mystery; the party searched the forest in vain for a distance of five or six miles on all sides. Some of the men thought that the oxen had fallen into the stream and had drowned; it was not likely that they had been stolen.
When I started home the next morning Willis walked with me for two miles or more. We had not mentioned Jotham's oxen since the previous afternoon; but I plainly saw that Willis had been thinking the matter over, for, after we separated and had each gone a few steps on his way, he called after me: "Are you going to tell about that?" "No," said I, and walked on.
Looks as if there'd be something hot for supper." Jotham's facial muscles were unmoved by this appeal and, his vocabulary being limited, he merely repeated: "I guess I'll go along back." To Ethan there was something vaguely ominous in this stolid rejection of free food and warmth, and he wondered what had happened on the drive to nerve Jotham to such stoicism.
Now the text follows the order of observation, so to speak, and mentions the outward facts of Jotham's success before it goes deeper and accounts for them. We have reversed the process and dealt first with the cause. The spring of all lay in his conscious recognition of his relation to God and God's to him.
Jotham was at last obliged to buy another yoke of cattle in order to do his spring work on the farm. Two years passed, and Jotham's oxen were almost forgotten.
And the powwow that broke loose was somethin' tremendous. Of course 'twas plain enough what Dan's game was. This was the 'somethin'' that was goin' to happen. "Ellis see the way the land lay, and he bounces up to protest. 'Twas an outrage; a scandal; ridiculous; and so forth, and so on. Poor Gabe didn't know what to do, and so he didn't do nothin'. A head Conservative seconds Jotham's nomination.
Anybody who knows Muddy Pond will know that Jotham's story ought to be true, for the pond is there to prove it, just as he describes it. "Of course," says Jotham at this point, "that was skill. Not one hunter in a hundred would have thought to bend his gun so as to throw the shot in a circle or would have been able to estimate the amount of the curve so exactly right.
That was the destination of the Jenness party, who had passed the Dixon boys when they were camped after their upset in the creek, several days before. This would leave the Clarks John and his wife and two children, and his brother Jotham, and Jotham's boy, Pelatiah to make a settlement by themselves on Hunter's Creek. Which way were the Dixon boys going?
This King Jotham is one of the obscurer of the Jewish monarchs, and we know next to nothing about him. The most memorable event in his reign is that 'in the year when King Uzziah, his father, 'died, and consequently in Jotham's first year, Isaiah saw the Lord sitting in the Temple on the empty throne, and had the lips which were to utter so many immortal words touched with fire from the altar.
Of course we young folks did not at that time know or understand much about all this; but I have learned since that Jonathan often unbosomed his troubles to the old Squire, who sympathized with him, but who could do little to improve matters. Jotham's wife was a worthy woman, and I never heard that she did not treat the old folks well.
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