At first Tom
was the master and the bottle his slave, but in three years' time they
changed places. When too late, his parents discovered that the college
had sent back to them a ripe scholar, a trained athlete and a drunkard.
The mother tried to save her son, but failing in every effort, her
heart broke and she died with Tom's name on her lips. The father,
weighed down under the dead sorrow and the living trouble, vainly
strove to rescue his son, and was found one night in the attitude of
prayer, kneeling by the side of the bed where his wife's broken heart a
few months before had ceased to beat. He died praying for his boy!
One evening as the sun was setting, a man stood leaning against the
fence along one of the streets of a certain city. His clothes were
ragged, his hands and face unwashed, his hair uncombed and his eyes
bleared; he looked more like a wild beast hunted and hungry, than a
human being. It was Tom. The boys gathered about him, and made him
the object of their fun and ridicule.
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