The boy gave vent to a long drawn whistle,—
“Say, Gov’nor! this is news. Where did you manage to have him stowed away all this time?”
The face of Mr. Wallace flushed darkly red.
“Homer, I am ashamed of you. You would please me much by being a little less ill-bred.” Then turning again to Wilbur and again extending his hand,
“Will you permit the past to be forgotten? Must I ask in vain that my boy, my first born, will lay his hand in mine?”
The husky pleading of the voice touched Wilbur. After a few moment’s hesitation in which the past seemed to confront him,—in which he seemed to hear the splashing of the icy waters of the Susquehanna river as they closed over the head of the hazel-eyed little mother, so many years ago—a shudder passed through his frame; then his eyes fell upon the boy, almost a young man, but with a sullen look on the otherwise fair face, thereby marring its beauty—the disrespectful manner towards his father, showing an equally marred character. Then his eyes turned to the face of the father who had so long been a stranger to him, and what they saw there again touched his better nature. No! it certainly was not the face of a happy man. There were lines in it that the flight of years alone had not traced. It looked careworn and worried. Slowly, involuntarily his hand was raised and laid in the outstretched palm whose fingers closed about it almost like a vice. Several moments passed ere Mr. Wallace had controlled himself sufficiently to speak, then hurriedly, anxiously,—
“You will go with me? I want you at home.”
Wilbur shook his head, but his father only held his hand the faster.
“I will take no refusal. For once I am going to give Edith and Hilda a pleasant surprise. Come, Homer, we will not keep them waiting at home for us any longer.” Without answering the boy turned his steps homeward, while Mr. Wallace drew Wilbur’s arm through his.
“You will come I know, and the girls will be happy.”