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Show FATHER, IS THIS YOUR CASE? "I don't believe," said Mrs. Green, "that John is learning much at the school where he goes. I think you ought to see after him a little. He never studies a lesson at home." "Mr. Elden has the reputation of being one of jh. our best teachers. His school stands high," replied Mr. Green. i "That may all be." said Mrs. Green. "Still, I really think you ought to know for yourself how John is getting along. Of one thing I am certain, he does not improve in good manners nor good temper tem-per in the least. And he is never in the house be- I tween school hours, except to get his meals. I wish aou would require him to be at the store during the afternoons. School is dismissed at 3 o'clock, and . he ranges the streets with other boys and goes where he pleases from that time until night." "That's very bad" Mr. Green spoke in a con-f-erned voice "very bad. And it must be broken up. But as to having him at the store, that is out 1 of the question. lie would be into everything and 1 keep me in hot water all the while. He'd like to -ome well enough, I do not doubt, but I can't have him there." , "Couldn't you set him to doing something?" "I might. But I haven't time to attend to him, Margaret. Business is business, and cannot be interrupted." in-terrupted." Mre. Green sighed, and then remarked: "I wish you would call on Mr. Elden and have a talk with him about John." "I will, if you think it best." j "Do so, by all means. And, besides, I would give j more time to John in the evenings. If, for in- ; stance, you devoted an evening to him once a week, it would enable you to understand how he is progressing pro-gressing and give you a control over him not now possessed." "You are right in this, no doubt, Margaret." But reform went not beyond this acknowledgment. acknowledg-ment. Mr. Green could never find time , to see John's teacher, nor feel himself sufficiently at leis- I V. . t J w , , ure or in the right mood of mind to devote to the boy even a single evening. And thus it went on from day to day, from month to month, and from year to year, until finally fin-ally J ohn was sent home from school by Mr. Eldon with a note to his father, in which idleness, disorderly disor-derly conduct and vicious habits were charged upon him in the broadest terms. The unhappy Mr. Green called immediately upon the teacher, who gave him a more particular account ac-count of his son's bad conduct, and concluded by saying that he was unwilling to receive him back into his classes. From the second school at which John was entered en-tered he was dismissed within three months for bad conduct. He was then sent to school in a distant city, where, removed from all parental restraint and admonition, he made viler associates than any he had hitherto known, and took thus a lower step in vice. He was just 17 when a letter from the principal prin-cipal of this school conveyed to Mr. Green such unhappy un-happy intelligence of his son that he immediately resolved, as a last resort, to send him to sea, before the mast. And this was done, spite of all the mother's moth-er's tearful remonstrances and the boy's threats that he would escape from the vessel on the very first opportunity. At the end of a year John came home from sea, a rough, tobacco-chewing, cigar-smoking, dram-drinking, dram-drinking, overgrown boy of 18, with all his sensual desires and animal passions more active than when he went away, while his intellectual faculties and moral feelings were in a worse condition than at his separation from home. Grief at the change oppressed op-pressed the hearts of his parents, but their grief was unavailing. Various efforts were made to get him into some business, but he remained only a short time in any of the places where his father had him introduced. Finally, he was sent to sea again. Several months elapsed. Mr. Green had returned re-turned home, well satisfied with his day's business. In his pocket was the afternoon paper, which, after the younger children were in bed and the older ones out of the way, he sat down to read.. To the telegraphic tele-graphic columns his eyes turned. There had been an arrival in Boston from the Pacific, and almost the first sentence he read was the intelligence of his son's death. The paper dropped from his hands, while he uttered an expression of surprise and grief that caused the cheeks of his wife, who was in the room, to turn deadly pale. She had not power to ask the cause of her husband's sudden exclamation, but her heart, that ever yearned towards her absent boy, instinctively divined the truth. "John is dead," said Mr. Green at length, speaking speak-ing in a tremulous voice. There was from the mother no wild burst of anguish. The boy had been dying to her daily for years, and she had suffered for him worse than the pangs of death. Burying her face in her hands, she wept silently, yet hopelessly. "If we were 'only blameless of the poor child's death," said Mrs. Green, lifting her tearful eyes after aft-er the lapse of nearly ten minutes, and speaking in a sad. self-rebuking tone of voice. When those with whom we are in close relationship relation-ship die, how quickly is that page in memory's book turned on which lies the record of unkindness or neglect 1 Already had this page been turned for Mr. Green, and conscience was sweeping therefrom the dust that well-nigh obscured the handwriting. He trembled inwardly as he read the condemning sentences that charged him with the guilt of his own son's ruin. "If we were only blameless of the poor child's death!" How these words of the grieving mother smote upon his heart! He did not respond" to them. IIow could he do so at that moment ? "Where is Edward ?" he inquired at length. "I don't know," sobbed the mother. "He is out somewhere almost every evening. Oh, I wish you would look to him a little more closely. He is past my control." "I must do so," returned Mr. Green, speaking from a strong conviction of the necessity of doin as his wife suggested. "If I only had a little more time " He checked himself. It was the old excuse, ths rock upon which all his best hopes for his firstborn first-born had been fearfully wrecked. His lips closed ; his head was bowed, and in the bitterness of unavailing un-availing sorrow he mused on the past. T. S. in the Quarterly (Altoona, Pa.). |