He caused your mother
many heartaches. You will promise?"
"I promised Mama that before she died, and I will always keep it," answered
Austin with feeling.
"I do not know how things will go when you are gone from here, but I tell
you now, boy, that if you ever need a friend or find yourself out of a
home, let me know, and I will send you money to come to us. I am sorry you
are going so far away. I want to see that you have a chance to make good in
life."
To the neglected, over-burdened boy these tender words were like a balm to
his heart. He felt no sense of protection from his father, and he missed
his mother always. At times it seemed that his load was too heavy for him
to bear. Yet to his father he would make no complaint, lest the home be
broken up. He loved the children tenderly for their own sake, and with a
deeper love yet for her sake who had been called away from them. Sometimes
he had to forget that he was a boy and look ahead and think like a man.
"Austin, we hear you are going to your father. We are glad of it, but, boy,
take the advice of a friend of your father's, do not follow his footsteps.
He is a good fellow and we like him, but he would have been a better man to
his family if he never had learned to drink. It would never do you any
good," said Pete Dykes one day.
Pete was one of his father's cronies, and this advice surprized Austin.
"Pete is right in that. You are better off if you never learn to drink,"
said Sam Phipps, Pete's companion.
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