He drank every drop of the contents, and seemed to relish it amazingly.
“You’re all so good to me, fellows!” he said, after draining the cup to the very dregs. “It’s almost like getting back home again to meet Oakvale boys up here, and my own brother Gus among the lot. I guess it must have been my good angel that guided me to this place, where I knew we’d find shelter; for I thought father’s loggers would be working here, and I might get a job on the sly, till I could communicate with my mother. Oh! I’ll never stop being thankful it’s all come out as it has.”
“There’s something I ought to tell you, Sam,” remarked Gus, a little later, after some of the excitement had worn away, and they could manage to sit or lie around enjoying the cheery fire, and thanking their lucky stars, as Billy said, that the fates allowed them to be so comfortable when it was getting bitter cold outside with a shift of wind into the northwest.
The prodigal looked anxious upon hearing his brother say that.
“Nothing bad, I hope, Gus?” he observed.
“You must settle that with yourself,” the other replied, “after you’ve heard what I say. But, Sam, I’ve got some reason to believe father is beginning to feel sorry for what he did years ago. You know he’s got an iron will, and even mother is afraid to stir him up. But just the other day something happened that made me think he’s breaking down.”
“Tell me, Gus, please tell me!” urged Sam, eagerly.
“Why, it happened this way, you see,” resumed the other, quickly. “I was passing the door of the library and chanced to look in just in time to see father put something down in the corner of the big secretary that stands there, you remember, Sam. He started to blow his nose, too, and turned his back on me; but I give you my word, Sam, when I saw him a few minutes later his eyes were red!”
“Oh!” exclaimed Sam, with his face as tense as it could well be.
“That made me mighty curious, I tell you,” Gus went on to say, “and when I had a half-decent chance I just slipped into the library and looked to see what it was father had been staring at when I startled him. Sam, would you believe it, I found that little picture of you there, that mother had in a gilt frame, and kept on the parlor mantel up to the time you went away!”