he can be made to see his error."

"Did he tell you what was the trouble?"

"No; will you?"

"Let him come back and behave himself!" the older man said.

Dr. Lavendar thrust out his lower lip with a thoughtful frown. "It
would expedite things, Wright, if you could tell me a little about the
affair?"

Mr. Wright hesitated. He thrust his hand down into a blue ginger-jar
for a piece of dried orange-skin and bit at it as if to steady his
lips. "Sam can tell you if he wants to. He has perhaps informed you
that he wishes to see the world? That he thinks life here very narrow?
No? Well, I sha'n't quote him. All I shall say, is that I am doing my
duty to him. I've always done my duty to him. If he sees fit to set up
his own Ebenezer, and say he won't speak to me--I suppose he conveyed
that filial sentiment to you?--he can do so. When he gets hungry he
can speak. That's what other puppies do when they are hungry."

And that was all Dr. Lavendar got out of the father....

This was thirty-two years ago. Sain Wright may have been hungry, but
he never spoke. Instead, he worked. Old Chester seethed with curiosity
for a while--to see Benjamin Wright pass his son with a contemptuous
stare, to see Sam pass his father without a glance was very exciting.
But excitement ebbs in thirty-two years. For one thing, old Mr. Wright
came less often into town--because he could not bear to meet his son,