The Story of David Morrison - Page 2

smile at Davie's sad, wistful face, just as long as he
could see it.

It was Davie's nature to believe and to trust. With a pitiful confidence
and constancy he looked for the redemption of his brother's promise.
After twenty years of absolute silence, he used to sit in the evenings
after his work was over, and wonder "how Sandy and he had lost each
other." For the possibility of Sandy forgetting him never once entered
his loyal heart.

He could find plenty of excuses for Sandy's silence. In the long years
of their separation many changes had occurred even in a life so humble
as Davie's. First, his cousin Morrison died, and the old business was
scattered and forgotten. Then Davie had to move his residence very
frequently; had even to follow lengthy jobs into various country places,
so that his old address soon became a very blind clew to him.

Then seven years after Sandy's departure the very house in which they
had dwelt was pulled down; an iron factory was built on its site, and
probably a few months afterward no one in the neighborhood could have
told anything at all about Davie Morrison. Thus, unless Sandy should
come himself to find his brother, every year made the probability of a
letter reaching him less and less likely.

Perhaps, as the years went by, the prospect of a reunion became more of
a dream than an expectation. Davie had married very happily, a simple
little body, not unlike himself, both in person and disposition. They
had one son, who, of course, had been called Alexander, and in whom
Davie fondly insisted, the lost Sandy's beauty and merits were
faithfully reproduced.

It is needless to say the boy was extravagantly loved and spoiled.
Whatever Davie's youth had missed, he strove to procure for "Little
Sandy." Many an extra hour he worked for this unselfish end. Life itself
became to him only an implement with which to toil for his boy's
pleasure and advantage. It was a common-place existence enough, and yet
through it ran one golden thread of romance.

In the summer evenings, when they walked together on the Battery, and in
winter nights, when they sat together by the stove, Davie talked to his
wife and child of that wonderful brother, who had gone to look for
fortune in the great West. The simplicity of the elder two and the
enthusiasm of the youth equally accepted the tale.

Somehow, through many a year, a belief in his return invested life with
a glorious possibility. Any night they might come home and find Uncle
Sandy sitting by the fire, with his pockets full of gold eagles, and no
end of them in some safe bank, besides.

But when the youth had finished his schooldays, had learned a trade and
began to go sweethearting, more