GUY COULD scarcely believe his eyes. His father was the last man on earth he had expected to see in St. Louis—the last one he wanted to meet, if the truth must be told—and he hoped that he was mistaken.

But the approaching gentleman was really Mr. Harris—there could be no doubt about that; for, as far as his personal appearance was concerned, he had not changed in a single particular since Guy last saw him. His face wore the same fierce frown, before which the boy had so often trembled, and which seemed habitual to him, and he carried himself as stiffly as ever. But he came up with some eagerness in his manner, and for once appeared to be glad to see his son.

“Guy!” said he, seizing the boy’s outstretched hand and speaking with more cordiality than he had ever before thrown into his tones when addressing him.

“Father!” replied Guy.

“How do you do?” said Mr. Harris. “When did you arrive here, and where have you been?”

Guy noticed, with some of the old bitterness in his heart, that his father did not say he was glad to meet him, but he was not much surprised at it. He could not recollect that his father had ever exhibited any affection for him. He saved all that for Ned, and Guy was obliged to be contented with the few crumbs that fell to his share in the shape of Christmas presents and a religious book once or twice a year.

“I have just now come from the plains,” replied Guy. “I have been to sea since I saw you last.”

“To sea!” repeated Mr. Harris—“as a common sailor?”

“Yes, sir. I have made two voyages as a foremast hand, one of them around the Horn. I came from San Francisco overland.”

A few minutes’ silence followed. The two stood holding fast to each other’s hands, and each was busy with his own thoughts. Mr. Harris was running his eyes over Guy’s face and figure, and was plainly surprised, and perhaps a little disappointed, to see him so neatly dressed and looking so well.

The conventional runaway always turns up ragged and in a starving condition; but this one looked as though he had been living on the fat of the land. Guy was waiting with some anxiety to hear what his father would have to say next, and wondering if his long separation from him had softened his heart in any degree. At last Mr. Harris spoke.

“I am stopping at the Planter’s House,” said he. “Come over there with me. I want to talk to you.”

As he said this he drew his son’s arm through his own and led him away. This movement on his part was a great surprise to Guy. Never before had his father treated him with so much familiarity.

Perhaps he was beginning to see that he had made a woful mistake in keeping the boy at such a distance from him. Had his eyes been opened to this fact eighteen months sooner Guy would never have been a runaway.

Arriving at the Planter’s House Mr. Harris led the way to his room, and as he locked the door behind him and handed Guy a chair, the latter felt very much as he had felt in former days when his father had ordered him into the library for some offense he had committed, and followed him there with an apple-tree switch in his hand.

“Are you on your way home, Guy?” asked Mr. Harris as he sealed himself in a chair opposite his son.

“No, sir,” was the reply. “I came to St. Louis intending to enlist in the army.”

“You must not do that, Guy,” said his father earnestly. “There are enough beside you to risk their lives in this war. I want you to go back with me. Home is the place for you.”

“No, father, I can’t do it,” said Guy.

“Why not?”

“I have two good reasons. In the first place, I suppose that all my acquaintances know by this time that I ran away from home.”

“I suppose they do,” said his father, “and that is all the punishment you will have to stand.”

“For the opinions of the majority I care nothing. Those who know all the circumstances will not judge me too harshly,” said Guy, astonished at the readiness with which he expressed himself. But then his heart was full of this matter. He had thought of it often and words came easy to him.

Mr. Harris elevated his eyebrows and looked surprised.

“Yes, sir,” continued Guy, who easily read the thoughts that were passing in his father’s mind. “I mean to say that every man and woman in Norwall who is intimate with our family will tell you to-day, if they tell you anything, that I had good reason for wishing to leave home. I never saw a moment’s peace there in my life.”

“Then why did you not come to me like a man and say so, instead of sneaking away like a thief in the night?” asked Mr. Harris with all the old sternness in his voice.

“I knew better. I did not care to put myself in the way of a whipping, and that is all the satisfaction I should have got.”

Whatever may have been Mr. Harris’ other faults, he was not dishonest. He did not deny this—he could not, so he hastened to change the subject.

“What was the reason you were not happy at home?” he asked. “Ned seems to enjoy himself very well.”

“I suppose he does,” returned Guy bitterly. “He has a father and mother who try to make home pleasant for him. Any boy can enjoy himself under such circumstances.”

“Didn’t you have all you wanted to eat, and drink, and wear?”

“Yes, sir; but is that all a boy wants to make him happy? No, indeed. He wants a kind word now and then. He likes to be told once in a while that there is some good in him, and that he is not altogether wicked and depraved. He wants privileges occasionally, not those granted with hesitation and grumbling and cautions innumerable, for he cannot enjoy them, but those which are extended willingly and smilingly, as if the parent found as much pleasure in giving as the boy does in receiving them. He wants somebody who will love him, and who is not ashamed to show it. Where is Henry Stewart?” asked Guy suddenly.

“He is still at home,” replied Mr. Harris, “studying hard to fit himself for college. Mr. Stewart seems to be particularly blessed in his children. Henry is a model boy. He never does anything behind his father’s back that he would be ashamed to do before his face.”

“And what is the reason?” asked Guy.

“I don’t know, I am sure. I suppose it is nature.”

“Yes, the nature of the boy has a good deal to do with his behavior, of course, but believe me, father, when I say that the parents have a great deal to do with it, too,” said Guy earnestly. “If you will go into Mr. Stewart’s yard some night and watch his family through the window, as I did on one occasion, the mystery will be solved in two minutes’ time. Henry can’t help being a good boy, because he has a good home. It isn’t what he has to eat and drink and wear that makes him so, either.”

“Well, have you been so much happier since you have been out in the world than you were at home?”

“I have been so much better satisfied that I don’t want to go back,” replied Guy.

“Have you never regretted your rash act? Have you never wanted to see us?”

“Yes, sir, to both your questions. I wished myself at home a good many times during the first three months I was away, not because I was sorry I had left it, but because I was disheartened by the misfortunes I met with and the abuse I received from some of those with whom I came in contact. The world isn’t what I expected to find it by any means. I have been cured of a good many foolish notions since I left home.”

“You must have had some plan in your head when you ran away,” said Harris. “What did you expect to do?”

“I intended to become a hunter,” said Guy, with some hesitation.

“There!” exclaimed his father, suddenly brightening. “I have at last reached the root of the matter. Don’t you see now that my judgment was better than yours? If you had respected my wishes and let those miserable works of fiction alone, you would have saved yourself a great deal of trouble. Be honest now. Confess that the only reason why you left home was because you got some wild idea into your head from those books.”

“I have already told you why I left home, and why I don’t want to go back,” said Guy. “If works of fiction are such awful things, how does it come that Henry Stewart is so good a boy? He has a whole library of such books, and he doesn’t have to hide away in the carriage-house or attic to read them either, as I did. I don’t deny that the stories I read had something to do with my choice of an occupation, but I do deny that they had anything to do with my leaving home. The home itself was the cause of that. It was such a gloomy, dismal place, that I couldn’t stay there. But I’ve had enough of life on the frontier and on the ocean wave. It is all well enough to sit down by a comfortable fire in an easy chair, and read about the imaginary adventures that fall to the lot of hunters and sailors who never existed, but when one comes to follow the business, he finds that it is a different matter altogether.”

“Well, what are you going to do here in St. Louis?” asked Mr. Harris.

“I don’t know. I must find work of some kind, and that very soon, for I have but a few dollars left. I know nothing of business, consequently if I went into a store I should have to accept the lowest position, which would not bring me enough to board and clothe myself. The only way I can see is to enlist. I shall save every cent of my money—I think I know the value of it—and when my term of service expires, I shall have enough to enable me to take a course at the Commercial College. Perhaps after that I can find some paying situation.”

“You must not go into the service, Guy,” said Mr. Harris. “I should never expect to see you again. I can give you something to do.”

Guy opened his lips to decline this proposition without waiting to hear more about it. The thought of working under his father’s supervision was most distasteful to him—indeed, it could not be entertained for a moment. He could not bear to meet, every hour in the day, that stern, gloomy man, who never smiled. But Mr. Harris went on without giving him time to speak.

“I have prospered since the war begun,” said he. “I have had two profitable government contracts, and have established a business house in this city. Mr. Walker, who is now my partner, has charge of it. I will step around and see him about it, and perhaps we can make some satisfactory arrangements, if you will promise to keep out of the service.”

“But, father,” said Guy, “do you live here in this city?”

“No; I have charge of our business in Norwall. I go back there by this evening’s train. What do you say?”

“I shall be grateful for any work that will bring me my board and clothes, and will promise to keep out of the service,” said Guy.

“Suppose you come around here and take dinner with me at three o’clock. I shall then be able to tell you what arrangements Mr. Walker and myself have made.”

“Very well, sir,” said Guy.

Mr. Harris arose to his feet, and Guy taking this as a hint that he wished the interview brought to a close, picked up his hat and left the room.

“Thank goodness, it is over at last,” said he, drawing a long breath of relief. “I didn’t say half I meant to have said, and I am glad I didn’t, for I could see that he felt badly. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but at the same time I wanted to let him see how impossible it is for me to go back to Norwall with him. I shall always remember that interview, for it is an event in my life. It is the first time I ever spent half an hour in private with my father without getting a scolding or a whipping. He was distant enough, mercy knows, but still he was kinder and more cordial than I ever knew him to be before. Why didn’t he exhibit a little of that spirit years ago? I would have done anything for him that I could do.”

“I never in my life heard of such impudence,” soliloquized Mr. Harris, as he paced up and down his room after Guy’s departure. “It was all I could do to keep my hands off that boy. He had the audacity to tell me to my face that I and his mother are the cause of his wrong-doing—that we made his home so unpleasant for him that he couldn’t stay there. If that is the case what is the reason Ned doesn’t run away? Guy must be demented. That bosh he used to read so much has turned his head.”

How very unwilling we are to confess ourselves in fault for any unhappiness that befall us—it is so much easier to lay the blame upon somebody else. Said a father in my hearing, not long ago, while speaking of a reckless, dissolute son who had caused him a world of trouble:

“Tom always was a peculiar boy. I never could understand him. He seemed to prefer any place on earth to his home, and he never would stay there if he could go anywhere else. Why it was so I am sure I don’t know. I tried my best to do my duty by him, and it is a great comfort to me now in my old age to know that nobody can tell me I spoiled him by sparing the rod. I was as strict with him as a father could be. When he was not at school I shut him up inside the yard to keep him out of the company of bad boys. I never allowed him to go to a theater or circus, but made him read his Bible every day and learn a portion of the New Testament every night before he went to bed. In the evening, as soon as the gas was lighted, I compelled him to bring out his school books and study them until nine o’clock. I exercised the strictest supervision over his reading, and burned every story paper, novel, book of travel, and trash of that sort that he brought into the house. I saw that he was regular in his attendance at church and Sunday-school, and on Sunday afternoons never permitted him to touch any books or papers except those of a religious character. In short, I tried to keep his mind so fully occupied with good and useful things that wicked and trifling ones could find no place in it. And how has my kindness been returned?” added the father sorrowfully. “Tom run away from home when the war broke out, and has never been near me since. He is now among those rough characters on the border, and if everything I hear is true, he is one of the worst of them. How a bad man can come from such a home as Tom had in his boyhood, is a mystery to me.”

But it was no mystery to me, for I had heard the other side of the story. A few weeks previous to this, while on my way to visit some friends in the East, it was my fortune to meet this same Tom in a distant State. I could scarcely recognize in him the innocent, meek-appearing boy I had known in years gone by. He was dressed in a red shirt, thrown open at the throat, coarse trousers thrust into a pair of high-top boots, and a tattered slouch hat which he wore cocked over his left ear. In a belt which encircled his waist he carried a navy six-shooter and a monstrous bowie-knife, both of which had been used with terrible effect in more than one personal encounter. He was a swaggering, swearing, boastful, dissipated fellow, and always seemed on the lookout for a chance to pick a quarrel with some one.

“You’re going home, Harry,” said he, as he grasped my hand at parting, “and I wish you joy of your visit. Would to Heaven I had a home to go to.”

“You have, Tom,” said I, “and your father would be glad to see you.”

“Don’t talk to me in that way,” he said, almost fiercely. “I know there is a house in an Eastern town where I used to stay when I was a boy, because I could go nowhere else, where I found shelter, food and clothing, and was daily strapped and scolded, but does that constitute a home? If it does, you writers and poets are all liars. You tell us home is a place around which one’s warmest affections cluster—a place consecrated by a mother’s presence, by her prayers and holy tears, whose sacred influence goes with us through life, and whose pleasant memories come thronging upon us when the tempter is near to keep us from being led astray. Such is the home of my dreams, but it is one I never knew and never shall know. I never knew a mother’s love, but was early made acquainted with the weight of a father’s hand. He was such a tyrant that I never could breathe easy in his presence. He denied me every boyish privilege and indulgence, and brought me up so strictly that I learned to despise everything good simply because he liked it. I hated the Sabbath, I hated the Bible, being held to so unreasonably strict an observance to the one, and so often compelled against my wishes to commit to memory whole pages of the other. I resolved, as far back as I can remember, that if I could once free myself from home, I’d see life and make up for lost time, and you know as well as I can tell you how I have kept that resolution. I am sorry for it now, but it is too late. I can’t live my life over again. I have come to such a pass that nobody cares for me.”

Tom’s under lip begun to quiver and his eyes to fill with tears. Ashamed of the weakness, he dashed his hand across his face, uttered an oath under his breath and swaggered off to the nearest saloon. What will his end be? The rope of a vigilance committee, or the bullet of some fellow desperado?

Parents, it is a serious matter to send a boy into the world with no pleasant recollections of yourselves or of home to restrain him in the hour of temptation.