I've Been Thinking; or, the Secret of Success

by A. S. Roe

The son had promised fair to be a support to his mother, and a good member of society, but a dark cloud had arisen upon all such prospects—bad company had now begun to have attractions for him. He neglected his work, disobeyed his mother, lost his ambition, and was in a fair way to make a wreck of body and soul. His mother had been proud of her William—of his good behavior, of his efficiency at work, of his industrious habits; and not a little proud was she of his fine appearance—it was a mother's weakness; but we will not judge her harshly. He had, indeed, a very pleasant expression to his countenance; his lively eye looked so kindly at you; there was such a play of roguishness and good-nature about his mouth; and when he spoke, a musical voice brought out the words so soft and clear—all tended to interest both friends and strangers. But all the love which his mother bore towards him, and all her pride in him, caused her to be more violent in her rebukes. She poured out such a torrent of invective at him, that much as he felt he deserved her displeasure, he could not stand the violence of it. Every bad feeling of his heart was aroused; he began to dread his home and his mother's voice, and sought refuge where, alas! ruin alone could be the end thereof.

He was now eighteen years of age, and as my reader was first introduced to him at Mr. Grizzle's store, we will follow him as he left that den of evil. His conscience was troubled; there was something in the appearance and behavior of Sam Oakum that morning, that revived the memory of what he himself had once been. We saw how he watched Sam when he left the store, as far his eye could follow him; how madly he poured down the offered glass, and rushed from the scene of his shame.

Whither to direct his steps he knew not, but onward he went; he was glad to be in the open air, it was so much better than the poisonous atmosphere he had just left. Soon his attention was arrested by the appearance of a dwelling and its precincts that he was about to pass. It was a scene of desolation—the house and all its accompaniments; the windows stuffed with every variety of color and substance to supply the places of broken panes; the door hung sideways by one hinge, the boards loose and flapping against the timbers of the house, the roof broken in, and apparently ready to fall upon the inmates, and the inclosures around the place lying prostrate or scattered about the grounds. A woman was outside, picking up what rubbish she could meet with to replenish the fire; sorrow was plainly marked upon her withered features; and as she walked into the house with a few faggots in her hand, there was such a deadness in her step, such a bowing down under the weight of some too heavy burden—ambition, comfort, hope, all seemed to have departed, and left her in her misery with a broken spirit.

William halted in his rapid course; he looked upon the scene and considered it well.

This was the house of one of those whom he had just left; the one most forward to complain of bad luck, and who joined most heartily in the laugh which had been excited at his expense. He had been familiar with this place; often had he seen it, just as it then appeared, but never had its desolate condition affected him before;—a light from heaven seemed pouring upon it, and singling it out from all other objects. He could look at nothing else. 'It was the vineyard of the man void of understanding, and the field of the slothful; the stone wall thereof was broken down; it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles covered the face thereof.'

William looked upon it, and received instruction: slowly and sadly he passed along.

A little by-road now crossed the public highway. Instinctively almost, he turned into it; the trees which lined it formed a grateful shade, and seemed to invite him therein to cool his heated, feverish frame.

Near to this path, and not far from the highway he had left, was a pure, bright, bubbling spring; it came up through the clean white sand, and the green turf formed its only curb. On one side it had cleared an opening, and meandered away through a little bed of fine gravel stones, which sparkled in the sunbeams as they stole through the branches of the willows which encircled the fountain. His throat parched with thirst, and his mind and body in an excited condition, he threw himself upon the velvet turf, and allayed his thirst from the pure stream. He tried to think, but his thoughts ran wild into each other; he turned his head towards the roots of one of the willows, and rested it there. It throbbed against the cool green turf; its coolness was refreshing to him, and there he slept.

Hettie Brown had that morning left her home in the barrens to do an errand for her mother in Mr. Grizzle's store; she stopped at the Widow Andrews', and found the mother and daughter in tears, and had to listen to a long tale of William's delinquencies.

'And he's gone off to Grizzle's, now again, I know he has; and there he'll sit and drink, and he'll come home drunk yet one of these days, and he'll be a drunkard and a vagabond.'