of
things, and was glad that he was to have his boy with him again,
although he murmured to himself, as he read his son's letter through his
bone-bowed spectacles: "Vacation, vacation, an' I wonder ef he reckons
de devil's goin' to take one at de same time?"

It was a joyous meeting between father and son. The old man held his boy
off and looked at him with proud eyes.

"Why, Robbie," he said, "you--you's a man!"

"That's what I'm trying to be, father." The young man's voice was deep,
and comported well with his fine chest and broad shoulders.

"You's a bigger man den yo' father ever was!" said his mother
admiringly.

"Oh, well, father never had the advantage of playing football."

The father turned on him aghast. "Playin' football!" he exclaimed. "You
don't mean to tell me dat dey 'lowed men learnin' to be preachers to
play sich games?"

"Oh, yes, they believe in a sound mind in a sound body, and one seems to
be as necessary as the other in fighting evil."

Abram Dixon shook his head solemnly. The world was turning upside down
for him.

"Football!" he muttered, as they sat down to supper.

Robert was sorry that he had spoken of the game, because he saw that it
grieved his father. He had come intending to avoid rather than to combat
his parent's prejudices. There was no condescension in his thought of
them and their ways. They were different; that was all. He had learned
new ways. They had retained the old. Even to himself he did not say,
"But my way is the better one."

His father was very full of eager curiosity as to his son's conduct of
his church, and the son was equally glad to talk of his work, for his
whole soul was in it.

"We do a good deal in the way of charity work among the churchless and
almost homeless city children; and, father, it would do your heart good
if you could only see the little ones gathered together learning the
first principles of decent living."

"Mebbe so," replied the father doubtfully, "but what you doin' in de way
of teachin' dem to die decent?"

The son hesitated for a moment, and then he answered gently, "We think
that one is the companion of the other, and that the best way to prepare
them for the future is to keep them clean and good in the present."

"Do you give 'em good strong doctern, er do you give 'em milk and
water?"

"I try to tell them the truth as I see it and believe it. I try to hold
up before them the right and the good and the clean and beautiful."