A Little Book for Christmas | Page 5

with it."
"You mean?"
"You did it."
"I?"
"Yes. Your drunken revelry, your reckless extravagance, your
dissipation with women, your unfeeling silence, your--"
"Stop!" cried the younger. "I have come to my senses, I can't bear it."
"I'll say it if it kills you. You did it, I repeat. He longed and prayed and
waited and you didn't come. You didn't write. We could hear nothing.
The best father on earth."
The younger man sank down in a chair and covered his face with his
hands.
"When?" he gasped out finally.
"Three days ago."
"And have you--"

"He is buried beside mother in the churchyard yonder. Now that you
are here I thank God that he didn't live to see what you have become."
The respectable elder brother's glance took in the disreputable younger,
his once handsome face marred--one doesn't foregather with swine in
the sty without acquiring marks of the association--his clothing in rags.
Thus errant youth, that was youth no longer, came back from that far
country. Under such circumstances one generally has to walk most of
the way. He had often heard the chimes at midnight, sleeping coldly in
the straw stack of the fields, and the dust of the road clung to his person.
Through his broken shoes his bare feet showed, and he trembled visibly
as the other confronted him, partly from hunger and weakness and
shattered nerves, and partly from shame and horror and for what reason
God only knew.
The tall, handsome man in the long black coat, who towered over him
so grimly stern, was two years older than he, yet to the casual observer
the balance of time was against the prodigal by at least a dozen years.
However, he was but faintly conscious of his older brother. One word
and one sentence rang in his ear. Indeed, they beat upon his
consciousness until he blanched and quivered beneath their onslaught.
"Dead--you did it!"
Yes, it was just. No mercy seasoned that justice in the heart of either
man. The weaker, self-accusing, sat silent with bowed head, his
conscience seconding the words of the stronger. The voice of the elder
ran on with growing, terrifying intensity.
"Please stop," interposed the younger. He rose to his feet. "You are
right, Will. You were always right and I was always wrong. I did kill
him. But you need not have told me with such bitterness. I realized it
the minute you said he was dead. It's true. And yet I was honestly sorry.
I came back to tell him so, to ask his forgiveness."
"When your money was gone."
"You can say that, too," answered the other, wincing under the savage

thrust. "It's as true as the rest probably, but sometimes a man has to get
down very low before he looks up. It was that way with me. Well, I've
had my share and I've had my fling. I've no business here. Good-bye."
He turned abruptly away.
"Don't add more folly to what you have already done," returned
William Carstairs, and with the beginnings of a belated pity, he added,
"stay here with me, there will be enough for us both and--"
"I can't."
"Well, then," he drew out of his pocket a roll of bills, "take these and
when you want more--"
"Damn your money," burst out John Carstairs, passionately. He struck
the other's outstretched hand, and in his surprise, William Carstairs let
the bills scatter upon the floor. "I don't want it--blood money. Father is
dead. I've had mine. I'll trouble you no more."
He turned and staggered out of the room. Now William Carstairs was a
proud man and John Carstairs had offended him deeply. He believed all
that he had said to his brother, yet there had been developing a feeling
of pity for him in his heart, and in his cold way he had sought to
express it. His magnanimity had been rejected with scorn. He looked
down at the scattered bills on the floor. Characteristically--for he
inherited his father's business ability without his heart--he stooped over
and picked them slowly up, thinking hard the while. He finally decided
that he would give his brother yet another chance for his father's sake.
After all, they were brethren. But the decision came too late. John
Carstairs had stood not on the order of his going, but had gone at once,
none staying him.
William Carstairs stood in the outer door, the light from the hall behind
him streaming out into the night. He could see nothing. He called aloud,
but there was no answer. He had no idea where his younger brother had
gone. If he had been a man of finer feeling or quicker perception,
perhaps if the positions of the two had been reversed and he had been