The Gold Brick

by Ann S. Stephens

It was of no use struggling. Over a breakfast table like that the good angels held control; nothing worse could hover near those blessed old people upon their own hearth-stone. There every thing spoke of the old time—the round table, covered with bird's-eye linen, homemade, glossy as a snow crust, and as white. The same sprigged china and quaint teaspoons. The silver teapot—old-fashioned even then—had been brought out for the first time in years, and stood emitting dainty puffs of steam between the andirons. The old lady looked at her son and at the teapot with conscious smiles, which said plainly as smiles could speak, "You see that I keep nothing back when my son comes home, not even that!"

Thrasher smiled as he gathered in this picture. It was the smile of a stern character, and changed his whole face. Rare must be the smile which makes a human heart leap. You never heed perpetual sunshine, but that which flashes through clouds makes itself felt and remembered.

"How much he looks like his father now," thought the mother, while the old man held out his hand, and grasped that of his son with a hearty "good-morning."

"Son," said the old lady, as she took up the teapot, with a little flutter, like that of a bird pluming itself, "now that we are all together—the whole family, you know—supposing we sit down at once. Your father usually goes to prayers before breakfast, Nelson, but we'll just put it off till afterward—don't you think so, husband?"

A strong sense of duty alone kept the old man from saying yes, at once; but he wasn't to be led into temptation by the fond designs of that precious little woman, not he; nor by the fear that his son would rather not. Morning prayers didn't happen to be duties so lightly disposed of, in his estimation. He motioned the old lady to leave the breakfast where it was, on the hearth, and taking the great Bible from its stand, began to read with solemn deliberation.

Thrasher liked this; had his father varied in any thing from the steady goodness of his character, it would have been a sad disappointment to the son; for such persons are generally the most keen-sighted in detecting the weakness of good men. Besides, there is something holy in the religious associations of an early home, which no man or woman can see disturbed without pain.

I am afraid that the old man, in compunction for a momentary impulse to yield, made his prayer a little longer than usual, and dwelt elaborately on that point which asked deliverance from temptation. Certain it is, that according to the habit of the times, he spoke of himself as a hardened sinner, and confessed to shortcomings and taints of original depravity that must have made the recording angel—who had set down nothing but good deeds to his account for many a long year—smile in benign patience.

Once, as the good Christian gave signs of prolonging his devotions, the old lady turned softly on her knees and pushed the dish, which contained a choice delicacy for her son, close to the fire; but she blushed in the act, and covering her face the instant it was accomplished, whispered "amen" at the end of a sonorous sentence in which her husband acknowledged the native depravity of every soul within the created world.

Still Nelson Thrasher was not impatient. Every word of the old man's voice thrilled him through and through. It would have taken something more than that to upheave the stern selfishness of his character to any purpose; but many a good feeling rose to the surface which, for the time, made him a better man.

They sat down to breakfast at last, and a right hearty New England breakfast it was. The old man talked pleasantly on every subject that came up. He possessed a clear, energetic mind, and had read a great deal more than was common to his class. His intelligence was active to seize on any food that presented itself, and his son's adventures by sea and land, were as exciting as a romance; not that old Mr. Thrasher knew what a romance was, or would have allowed one to enter his door if he had. Indeed, the Pilgrim's Progress had disturbed his mind a good deal from the fact that it was not an actual, instead of an ideal truth. As a great many conscientious people condemn the theatre, but fill the boxes of an opera, every night, this old-fashioned Christian listened to his son's spoken romances with infinite zest. They appealed keenly to his imagination, which found little aliment in any book he read, except when it seized upon the grandest of all poetry—that of the Bible.