returned from a journey without bringing each one some present, however
trifling. Orion, looking out of his window next morning, saw old Abram
Kurtz, and heard him laugh. He wondered how anybody could still laugh.

The boy Sam was fairly broken down. Remorse, which always dealt with him
unsparingly, laid a heavy hand on him now. Wildness, disobedience,
indifference to his father's wishes, all were remembered; a hundred
things, in themselves trifling, became ghastly and heart-wringing in the
knowledge that they could never be undone. Seeing his grief, his mother
took him by the hand and led him into the room where his father lay.

"It is all right, Sammy," she said. "What's done is done, and it does
not matter to him any more; but here by the side of him now I want you to
promise me----"

He turned, his eyes streaming with tears, and flung himself into her
arms.

"I will promise anything," he sobbed, "if you won't make me go to school!
Anything!"

His mother held him for a moment, thinking, then she said:

"No, Sammy; you need not go to school any more. Only promise me to be a
better boy. Promise not to break my heart."

So he promised her to be a faithful and industrious man, and upright,
like his father. His mother was satisfied with that. The sense of honor
and justice was already strong within him. To him a promise was a
serious matter at any time; made under conditions like these it would be