Such boys as Sam and Ben Drake seldom love home. Disobedient and headstrong children do not love their parents much, and, for this reason, home has few charms except as a place to eat and sleep. The history of nearly all base men will show that in early life they broke away from the restraints of home, and ceased to love the place where parents would guide them in the path of virtue. Some years ago a distinguished philanthropist visited a young man about twenty-eight years of age, who was confined in prison for passing counterfeit money. His sentence was imprisonment for life. He had become very sad and penitent in consequence of his imprisonment, and the fact that consumption was rapidly carrying him to the grave. The philanthropist inquired into his history. When he spoke to the prisoner of his mother, he observed that his chin quivered, and that tears came unbidden to his eyes.
"Was not your mother a Christian?" inquired the visitor.
"Oh yes, sir!" he answered; "many and many a time has she warned me of this."
"Then you had good Christian parents and wholesome instruction at home, did you not?"
"Certainly; but it all avails me nothing now."
"Then why are you here?"
Raising himself up in bed to reply to this last inquiry, the young man said,
"I can answer you that question in a word. I did not obey my parents nor care for home." And he uttered these last words with a look and tone of despair that sent a chill through the interrogator's heart.
This is but one illustration of the truth, that boys who do not love home usually make shipwreck of their characters. Probably Sam Drake would have laughed at Nat, or any other boy, for being homesick, and said,
"I should like to see myself tied to mother's apron strings. It will do for babies to cry to see their mothers, but it will not do for men. Suppose it is home, there are other places in creation besides home. I'd have folks know that there's one feller who can go away from home, and stay too."