Oh! they say he gave his father no end of trouble from time to time.

And it wound up in a row, with the boy doing something disgraceful, and running away from home, nearly breaking his mother's heart." "Didn't he ever come bad again ?" asked the interested listener.
Thad shook his head in the negative.
"They never looked on his face again, either living or dead," he said.

"Worse than that, they never even heard from him.

It was as if Joel had dropped out of sight that night when he left a line to his mother saying he was going west to where they raised men, not sissies.

And so the years rolled around, and, they say, the old lady even now sits looking into the sunset skies, dreaming that her Joel, just as she remembered him, had sent word he was coming back to visit them in their old age, and to ask forgiveness for his wrong-doing." Hugh was greatly moved by the sad tale, which, however, he knew could be easily matched in every town of any size in the country; for it is of common occurrence, with a multitude of sore hearts turning toward that Great West.
"That must have been how long ago, Thad ?" he asked presently.
"Let me see, I should think all of forty years; perhaps forty-five would be closer to the mark, Hugh." "How sad," mused the other lad, with a shake of his head; "and to think of that poor old lady, an invalid, you said, and confined to a wheelchair, watching the sinking sun faithfully each evening as it sets, still yearning for her boy to come back.