“Oh, I can stand it,” Brent replied, with unconscious irony. The devotion and the goodness of the old man had softened him as thought, struggle, and prayer had failed to do.
“Will you go in now?” asked Eliphalet. “He wants to see you: he can’t die in peace without.”
The breath came hard between his teeth as Brent replied, “I said I wouldn’t see him. I came because I thought you needed me.”
“He’s yore father, Freddie, an’ he’s penitent. All of us pore mortals need a good deal o’ furgivin’, an’ it doesn’t matter ef one of us needs a little more or a little less than another: it puts us all on the same level. Remember yore sermon about charity, an’—an’ jedge not. You ain’t seen all o’ His plan. Come on.” And, taking the young man by the hand, he led him into the room that had been his own. Hester rose as he entered, and shook hands with him, and then she and her husband silently passed out.
The sufferer lay upon the bed, his eyes closed and his face as white as the pillows on which he reclined. Disease had fattened on the hollow cheeks and wasted chest. One weak hand picked aimlessly at the coverlet, and the laboured breath caught and faltered as if already the hand of Death was at his throat.
The young man stood by the bed, trembling in every limb, his lips now as white as the ashen face before him. He was cold, but the perspiration stood in beads on his brow as he stood gazing upon the face of his father. Something like pity stirred him for a moment, but a vision of his own life came up before him, and his heart grew hard again. Here was the man who had wronged him irremediably.
Finally the dying man stirred uneasily, muttering, “I dreamed that he had come.”
“I am here.” Brent’s voice sounded strange to him.
The eyes opened, and the sufferer gazed at him. “Are you—”
“I am your son.”
“You—why, I—saw you—”
“You saw me in Cincinnati at the door of a beer-garden.” He felt as if he had struck the man before him with a lash.
“Did—you—go in?”
“No: I went to your temperance meeting.”
The elder Brent did not hear the ill-concealed bitterness in his son’s voice. “Thank God,” he said. “You heard—my—story, an’—it leaves me—less—to tell. Something—made me speak—to you that—night. Come nearer. Will—you—shake hands with—me?”
Fred reached over and took the clammy hand in his own.
“I have—had—a pore life,” the now fast weakening man went on; “an’ I have—done wrong—by—you, but I—have—repented. Will you forgive me?”
Something came up into Brent’s heart and burned there like a flame.
“You have ruined my life,” he answered, “and left me a heritage of shame and evil.”
“I know it—God help me—I know it; but won’t—you—forgive me, my son? I—want to—call you—that—just once.” He pressed his hand closer.
Could he forgive him? Could he forget all that he had suffered and would yet suffer on this man’s account? Then the words and the manner of old Eliphalet came to him, and he said, in a softened voice, “I forgive you, father.” He hesitated long over the name.
“Thank God for—for—the name—an’—forgiveness.” He carried his son’s hand to his lips, “I shan’t be—alive—long—now—an’ my—death—will set—people—to talkin’. They will—bring—up the—past. I—don’t want you—to—stay an’ have—to bear—it. I don’t want to—bring any more on—you than I have—already. Go—away, as—soon as I am dead.”
“I cannot leave my friends to bear my burdens.”
“They will not speak—of them—as they—will speak of—you, my—poor—boy. You—are—old—Tom Brent’s—son. I—wish I could take—my name—an’ all—it means—along—with—me. But—promise—me—you—will—go. Promise—”
“I will go if you so wish it.”
“Thank—you. An’—now—goodbye. I—can’t talk—any—more. I don’t dare—to advise—you—after—all—you—know—of me; but do—right—do right.”
The hand relaxed and the eyelids closed. Brent thought that he was dead, and prompted by some impulse, bent down and kissed his father’s brow—his father, after all. A smile flitted over the pale face, but the eyes did not open. But he did not die then. Fred called Mrs. Hodges and left her with his father while he sat with Eliphalet. It was not until the next morning, when the air was full of sunlight, the song of birds, and the chime of church bells, that old Tom Brent’s weary spirit passed out on its search for God. He had not spoken after his talk with his son.
There were heavy hearts about his bed, but there were no tears, no sorrow for his death—only regret for the manner of his life.
Mrs. Hodges and Eliphalet agreed that the dead man had been right in wishing his son to go away, and, after doing what he could to lighten their load, he again stood on the threshold, leaving his old sad home. Mrs. Hodges bade him goodbye at the door, and went back. She was too bowed to seem hard any more, or even to pretend it. But Eliphalet followed him to the gate. The two stood holding each other’s hands and gazing into each other’s eyes.
“I know you’re a-goin’ to do right without me a-tellin’ you to,” said the old man, chokingly. “That’s all I want of you. Even ef you don’t preach, you kin live an’ work fur Him.”
“I shall do all the good I can, Uncle ’Liph, but I shall do it in the name of poor humanity until I come nearer to Him. I am dazed and confused now, and want the truth.”
“Go on, my boy; you’re safe. You’ve got the truth now, only you don’t know it; fur they’s One that says, ’Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me.’ ”
Another hearty handshake, and the young man was gone.
As Fred went down the street, someone accosted him and said, “I hear yore father’s
