He stepped over the log and sat down, drawing Amos alongside. Throwing an arm about the other’s shoulder, Elmer waited to hear the sad story, which in truth he could already more than half guess.
“Is it all about some trouble your father got himself into, Amos?” he asked, seeing that the other hardly knew just how to begin.
“Yes, yes, that’s it!” sighed Amos. “My father was never known to do mean things, but he certainly did slip up once, and everything came from that terrible mistake. Just like a good many others do who are tempted, he took money that didn’t belong to him, expecting to put it back when a certain deal was carried through; but something happened that turned the tide the wrong way, and he found himself—a defaulter!”
“Yes,” said Elmer, soothingly, “it is a sad thing for you to remember; since you must have cared a great deal for your father, judging from what you say, and how you still suffer.”
“I loved him, we all did, for up to that time he had always been good to us,” Amos confessed. “It was in hopes of bettering the condition of his family that tempted him to do that terrible thing, too, mother has said since, a thousand times.”
“He went away, you said, didn’t you?” continued Elmer, when the other paused as if lost in contemplation of the distant past.
“Yes, to avoid being arrested, and bringing shame on his family,” came the answer. “I shall never forget that awful day as long as I live, though I was pretty young then, hardly ten. It came like a hurricane out of a clear sky, father showing up, and looking almost crazy, telling mother all about it, and that he must go away to try to redeem himself.
“He left her all the money he had, and told her to take us children to an old aunt of hers, who had means. Father vowed that he would make no attempt to communicate with her, or ever come back, unless he could square himself with the firm whose confidence he had abused.
“From that terrible day to this we have never once heard from him. Mother fully believes he has long been dead. She often talks of him to me as we sit in the gloaming, and her thoughts go back to the happy days of her young married life. I have his gold watch, left for me, but which, of course, I shall not carry until I am grown up and in business.
“The old aunt died shortly after we came to live with her, and left her property to my mother, whom she dearly loved. It was enough to keep us fairly comfortable, though we have to count the dollars; and I may yet have to leave school and go to work, so as to help out.