“Yes, sir. I have made two voyages as a foremast hand, one of them around the Horn. I came from San Francisco overland.”
A few minutes’ silence followed. The two stood holding fast to each other’s hands, and each was busy with his own thoughts. Mr. Harris was running his eyes over Guy’s face and figure, and was plainly surprised, and perhaps a little disappointed, to see him so neatly dressed and looking so well.
The conventional runaway always turns up ragged and in a starving condition; but this one looked as though he had been living on the fat of the land. Guy was waiting with some anxiety to hear what his father would have to say next, and wondering if his long separation from him had softened his heart in any degree. At last Mr. Harris spoke.
“I am stopping at the Planter’s House,” said he. “Come over there with me. I want to talk to you.”
As he said this he drew his son’s arm through his own and led him away. This movement on his part was a great surprise to Guy. Never before had his father treated him with so much familiarity.
Perhaps he was beginning to see that he had made a woful mistake in keeping the boy at such a distance from him. Had his eyes been opened to this fact eighteen months sooner Guy would never have been a runaway.
Arriving at the Planter’s House Mr. Harris led the way to his room, and as he locked the door behind him and handed Guy a chair, the latter felt very much as he had felt in former days when his father had ordered him into the library for some offense he had committed, and followed him there with an apple-tree switch in his hand.
“Are you on your way home, Guy?” asked Mr. Harris as he sealed himself in a chair opposite his son.
“No, sir,” was the reply. “I came to St. Louis intending to enlist in the army.”
“You must not do that, Guy,” said his father earnestly. “There are enough beside you to risk their lives in this war. I want you to go back with me. Home is the place for you.”