Desk and Debit; or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk

ening, after we had been discussing our domest

hat idea into your head?" replied my f

ld live any longer in this st

t think you need worry

mother is alive or dead. She may have been

her, we should have heard of it," added my father, mildly; but I sa

in this way," I persisted, perhaps a little

lt, my son," said

't thi

the bitter experience of

n to blame y

other's fault that an ocean

and mine too, in a sense different from what y

which disturbed him, I did not press the subject any further at that moment. But I felt all that I had said, and I thought something ought to be

deeply moved, I must briefly review the events of my life. I was born in the city of St. Louis, though this was a fact which had been patent to me only a couple of years. I had attained unto that worldly wisdom which en

red with pillows to keep me from rolling off. By an accident this frail craft was carried away from the burning steamer, then aground, and I was separated from my father, who, I grieve to say, was intoxicated at the time,

nd watching over me with a woman's tenderness. For eleven years I remained in the field and forest, hardened by the rude life of the pioneer, working hard, and winning a large experience in dealing with the elements around me. A well-educated and refined gentleman, driven from the ha

and I had rescued the daughter of my excellent friend and instructor, Mr. Gracewood, from the Indians. Ella was then, and is now, one of my best friends. In the autumn, leaving the farm and stock to Kit Cruncher, an old hun

y friends by an accident, and did not see them again for several weeks. But I found a place in the city to learn the carpenter's trade, in which I had already made

s. Greenough took care of him, giving to his body the nursing he needed, and to his spiritual wants the gospel of Jesus Christ. What my poor father, who had become the moral and physical wreck of what he had been before, could not do of his own strength, he did with the g

ums in rents, repairs, and building. He had a salary of twenty-four hundred dollars a year, more than half of which he saved, for we continued to live at the humble abode of Mrs. Greenough after t

in my possession fully testified, as well as those who had known her. Mr. Collingsby, her father, had three children, of whom my mother was the youngest. He was a wealthy man, and formerly a resident of St. Louis, from which he had removed, partly on account of his business, and pa

ented in sackcloth and ashes the errors of his lifetime. He had written to Mr. Collingsby several times, but no notice had ever been taken of his appeals. In vain he assured the father of his injured wife that he was an altered man; that he drank no li

St. Louis. Mr. Lamar, whose acquaintance I had made in the midst of my mishaps, had seen Mr. Collingsby, and told him the whole story. The rich man laughed at it, and declared that it was a trick; that, if he was a poor man, Far

I had left the field and forest. My father thought I was working too hard, and Mrs. Greenough seconded the argument with all the force of a woman's influence. Still I think I should not have given up my trade then if my employer had not changed his business, thus compelling me to seek

to improve my handwriting, which, as a carpenter, had been rather stiff. I took lessons of him, and as he was a practical business man, I escaped the vicious habit of flourishing in

entle expression of her countenance in the picture I had, that she would make us glad as soon as she was assured of the reformation of the wanderer. I meant to do something now, even if I had to spend my two thousand dollars in making a voyage to Europe to sear