Well,
my dear old mother used to coax, pray, and punish. My father was dead,
making it all the harder for her, but she never got impatient. How in the
world she bore all my stubborn, vexing ways so patiently will always be to
me one of the mysteries of life. I knew it was troubling her, knew it was
changing her pretty face, making it look anxious and old. After a while,
tired of all restraint, I ran away, went off to sea; and a rough time I had
of it at first. Still I liked the water, and I liked journeying around from
place to place.
"Then I settled down to business in a foreign land, and soon became
prosperous. Now I began sending her something besides empty letters. And
such beautiful letters as she always wrote me during those years of
absence. At length I noticed how long they grew, longing for the son who
used to try her so, and it awoke a corresponding longing in my heart to go
back to the clear waiting soul. So when I could stand it no longer, I came
back, and such a welcome, and such a surprise!
"My mother is not a very old lady, boys, but the first thing I noticed was
the whiteness of her hair and the deep furrows on her brow; and I knew I
had helped to blanch that hair to its snowy whiteness and had drawn those
lines in that smooth forehead.
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