"I don't know what made me go after that letter," said John, after a moment's silence, his voice broken with feeling. "I am sure I had no reason and no right to expect that it was for me; but it seemed to me that I must have it, and I went for it. And, mother, that letter brought me home. There were certain things that I meant to wait to do before I came—money that I meant to earn. I had an idea of waiting until I could feel that my coming would not disgrace you. But after I read that letter I knew I ought to come right away, and after I had so decided, I could hardly wait for morning. Now, mother, father, will you take me back? Will you let me try to be to you the son I ought to have been, and never was? I don't know that I should dare to say that to you, only that I have been to my heavenly Father and found out how he can forgive, and I have found that he says, 'Like as a father pitieth his children,' and 'As one whom his mother comforteth.' And that has given me a notion of what father and mother love are. And then, mother, that letter of yours—I went down on my knees before God with it and blessed him for it."
They were crying now, every one of them save Farmer Morgan, and what he felt no one knew. He drew out his red silk handkerchief and blew his nose twice, then he leaned forward and snuffed the candle. When he presently found voice it was a husky one; but all he said was,—
"We won't talk about them days that are gone; I guess the most of us are willing to bid good-bye to them and begin again. There's a chance for improvement in us all; like as not we better try for it."
The Morgan family actually sat up that night until nearly eleven o'clock. It was an unprecedented thing for them to do. I cannot tell you what they said; I even doubt much whether I would if I could. Do not you hate to see some things attempted on paper? A little of the commonplace mixed in with it? In fact, I doubt whether there could be a true home scene without touches of what we call commonplace coming in between. For instance, in the course of the evening Louise bethought herself of the little dismantled hall chamber, and slipped away and brought comforts, and quilts, and cover, and pure linen, and towels, and wrought with rapid hand until the room took on a sense of home and occupancy again. She even went for the tidies and the vases to make it all seem as he had left it. Then she climbed to the upper shelf and got down that Bible, and I am unable to tell you what a rush of glad emotions swelled in her heart as she thought of the tender way in which John had quoted those two Bible verses, and remembered that that Bible would be to him now something besides a cumberer.
Down in the kitchen the mother, her heart filled with the most precious thoughts that ever throbbed in a mother's heart, remembered suddenly that John had been very fond of a certain kind of cake, and while he and Lewis talked, and the father, with his elbows leaning on the arms of his chair and head bent forward, listened as though ten o'clock had not been two hours after his bed-time for more than half a century, the mother gave undertone directions to Dorothy to sift flour, and "bring a yeast-cake, and a little warm water, and the big yellow bowl, and the batter-spoon, and a little salt," and with skilful fingers, and such a light in her eyes as the yellow bowl had never seen before, prepared to make the breakfast table abound with good cheer. These commonplace reachings-out after to-morrows that make good cheer for the home are certainly productive of results that dignify them.
I find myself liking to linger over that evening in the Morgan household. It was such a wonderful hour to them—something which settled down into their lives as a history—a time from which they dated. Years afterward they said, "The moonlight to-night reminds me of that evening when John came home, you know," and then silence—such sentences never used save to that innermost circle and those who in after years grew into the circle and had a right to the family histories. Yet there is little to tell about it. How very often that is the case where there is much, so very much, to feel. One train of thought, intimately connected with it, ought to be told.
There was that in the evening's history which silenced Mr. Morgan—which bewildered him. Hitherto he had professed to be, and, in fact, I think believed himself to be, a sceptic as regarded the fact of a supernatural change in human hearts. Conversion, he believed, meant simply firm resolves, decision of character, will-power. Louise was, by natural temperament and by education, different from most others; so, in his way, was Lewis. Thus Mr. Morgan had reasoned. Dorothy needed waking up, and Louise and Lewis and Mr. Butler between them had waked her up. The change, sudden and great in his own wife, had bewildered him not a little. She certainly had always possessed will enough. But he told himself, "After all, what had she done but determine to be interested in the Bible and in the church and all that? All it needed was determination." Now, here came his strong-willed son—so strong, indeed, that his will had been his one great source of trouble even from babyhood. As a wee boy he had hated to give up one inch. He had been unable to say, "I am sorry," or, "I won't do so again," or, "Forgive me," or any of the penitent phrases which fall so readily from baby lips. A scowl and dogged perseverance in his own way had been characteristics of John's babyhood. Now, what power had brought him home to say not only, "I was wrong," but "Forgive me; I want to begin again"? John saying, "Father, mother, forgive me"—saying it without being ordered or compelled by the force of circumstances! His father was staggered. Here at last was something—some strange change that could not be explained by any force of will whatever, save by admitting that something—somebody—had changed the current of the will-power.
"I believe," said Father Morgan to himself, as late that night he sat down on the edge of his bed and slowly and thoughtfully removed his boots, while Mother Morgan went to see if John did not need another coverlet,—"I believe in my soul that somehow—I don't know how, but somehow—God has got hold of John."