Watch Yourself Go By

by Al. G. Field

That a saloonkeeper and a bar-tender, the very people whom Alfred had been so constantly warned against, should be the only ones who took an interest in him when in distress, was most surprising to the boy. Surely it was not from the fact that he patronized their establishments, as he never entered the place of one and was in the house of the other for only a few hours.

John W. Pittock, the founder of the Pittsburg Leader, was also proprietor of a book store at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Smithfield Street. The Leader was the first paper, that the writer has knowledge of, to print a sporting page. Pittsburgh, then as now, was strong for athletic sports. Aquatic sports were the most popular; Jimmy Hamill, the champion single sculler of the world, was at the zenith of his career. The day following Alfred's experience in the ten pin alley the city was all excitement over a sporting event. Alfred was sent to the Leader office to procure a number of copies of the paper for numerous guests of the hotel. The following Sunday morning Alfred sold over two hundred copies of the paper.

The superintendent of the Smithfield Street bridge was a friend of Alfred's father. He permitted the boy to establish a news-stand at the end of the bridge. From 5 a. m. until noon hundreds of copies of the Leader were sold. With his wages from the hotel the minstrel was making and saving money.

Alfred was homesick often but determined in his mind not to return to Brownsville until he had a stated amount of money. The father wrote him to return at once. Alfred replied that he had a good position but would return by a certain date.

It was a holiday in the smokey city. Alfred cleaned up over forty dollars on papers alone. That night he visited Brimstone Corner, a Methodist Church. No man or boy who ever lived in Pittsburgh but remembers its location. It was a revival; the church was packed, the sermon eloquent and it made a deep impression upon Alfred.

The minister read the text as follows: "And he said, A certain man had two sons; and the younger of them said to the father: 'Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.' And he divided unto him his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would feign have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said: 'How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger.' I will arise and go to my father and will say unto him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants.' And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said unto him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Bring forth the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet; and bring hither the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry. For this, my son, was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' And they began to be merry." The preacher continued:

"Who can say what the causes that led to the young man's leaving the luxurious home of his father to wander, an outcast, over the earth? The vagaries of the human mind are beyond our understanding. The prodigal son may have had illusions; he may have had ambitions. He may have been induced by illusions born of ambitions to make something of himself other than a plain farmer's boy. The dangers that lay along his pathway were not known to him. That he fell in with evil associates and did not have the will power to free himself from them is obvious.

"We cannot all live in one city; we cannot all live in one country or on one farm. It is but natural that boys will stray away from the old fireside. Read the history of this country; it was settled by hardy yeomen, possessed of that desire for changed conditions. Look at the great and growing West, settled by the descendants of those first settlers of New England and Virginia.

"That boys leave home, as did the prodigal son; that boys fall from grace, as did he who ate husks with the swine, should not shake our faith in the future of a young man who has fallen by the wayside. He is to be reclaimed, not by the mighty hand of the law, not by the chastisement of the father, but by the love and pity that man should exhibit not only for the good but for the lowest of God's creatures. We should extend to them the helping hand; we should prove by our actions that they have our love and pity.

"Pity is a mode, or a particular development, of benevolence. It is sympathy for those who are weak and suffering. Hence, our compassion for the erring one. We have affections for men who are good and noble, men who are prosperous, strong and happy. But for those who have been beaten down by the storms of life, for such we should feel that pity the father displayed for the prodigal son.