Horatio Alger - A Debt of Honor

Our story opens in a cabin among the foothills of Colorado. It was built of logs, and was not over twelve feet in height. In the center was a door, with a small window on each side. Through the roof rose a section of funnel, from which issued a slender cloud of smoke.

Let us enter.

The interior of the cabin is a surprise – being comfortably furnished, while a carpet covers the floor. On one side is a bureau, a few portraits are on the walls, a pine bedstead and an easy-chair, in which is reclining a man of middle age whose wasted form and hollow cheeks attest the ravages of consumption. From time to time he looked wistfully toward the door, saying in a low voice: “Where is Gerald? He is gone a long time.”

Five minutes later the sound of hoofs was heard outside, and a boy of sixteen galloped up from the canyon on the left, and, jumping off at the portal, tethered his pony and pushed open the door of the cabin. He was a marked contrast to the sick man, for he was strongly made, with the hue of health in his ruddy cheeks, and a self-reliant, manly look upon his attractive face.

“How do you feel, father?” he asked gently.

The sick man shook his head.

“I shall never be any better, Gerald,” he answered slowly.

“Don’t look on the dark side,” said Gerald.

“See, I have brought you some medicine.”

He took from the side pocket of his sack coat a bottle, which he placed on the table.

“There, father, that will do you good,” he said in a cheerful tone.

“It may relieve me a little, Gerald, but I am past permanent help.”

“Don’t say that, father!” said the boy, much moved. “You will live a long time.”

“No; I shall deceive myself with no such expectation. Don’t think I fear death. It has only one bitterness for me.”

The boy looked at his father inquiringly, anxiety wrinkling his brow.

“It is,” resumed the sick man, “that I shall leave you unprovided for. You will have to fight the battle of life alone.”

“I am young and strong.”

“Yes, but I would like to have left you in better condition. It is possible I may do so. I wrote some time since to a man who is rich and prosperous, and is under great obligations to me, telling him about you and asking him, as I had a right to ask him, to befriend you.”

Gerald looked surprised.

“Why has he never helped you?” he asked.

“Because – well, I have not perhaps urged the matter sufficiently,” he said.

“You say you did this man a service,” said Gerald.

“Yes. I think the time has come when I should tell you what that service is. Let me say in the outset that I saved his reputation at the expense of my own. It was, I am afraid, a mistake, for it ruined my life. But I was strongly tempted!”

He paused. Gerald listened with painful interest.

“You never told me much of your early life, father,” he said.

“You have wondered, no doubt, why I left civilization and buried myself-and you-in this out-of-the-way place?”

“Yes, father, I have wondered, but I did not like to ask you.”

“It is the fault of one man.”

“The man whom you expect to befriend me, father?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think I should like to be indebted to such a man,” said Gerald, and a stern expression settled on his young face. “I should not wish to accept any favors at his hands.”

“Nor would you. It would not be a favor, but the payment of a sacred debt. It would be reparation for a great wrong.”

“But, father, the reparation ought to have been made to you, not to me.”

“You are right, Gerald, but it is too late now.”

“Why did you not take steps before to have this wrong righted?”

“Because the world has misjudged me, and might misjudge me yet. This man should have needed no prompting. He should have saved me all trouble, and when he saw my life ruined, and my health shattered, he ought to have done what he could to pay me for the great service I did for him. I am afraid I was weak to yield to the temptation to help him in the first place.”

“Don’t say that, father,” put in Gerald.

“Yes, I will not try to disguise the truth from you,” went on the old man. “I was too pliant in this man’s hands. To be sure I committed no crime, but then I allowed a false impression about myself to get abroad, and I sometimes think that – that all that has happened since has been my punishment.”

“No, no, that cannot be true, father,” broke in the son. “I am sure all the fault was on the other side. But have you never seen the man since?”

“No, Gerald.”

There was silence in the little cabin for a brief while then. The boy was desirous to hear more, but the father seemed absorbed in meditation.

“Father,” finally said Gerald.

“Yes, my son,” rejoined the sick man, turning his gaze back to the boy by his side.

“Do you think the person of whom you speak is likely to befriend me?”

“I do not know. He has behaved so ungenerously about the whole matter. That is what makes me anxious.”

“Will you tell me the name of this man, father?”

“His name is Bradley Wentworth, and he lives in the town of Seneca, Illinois, where he has large investments, and is a prominent man.”

“Do you mind telling me how he injured you, father?”

“That is my wish and my duty while I yet live. Fifteen years ago, when we were both young men, we were in the employ of Dudley Wentworth, the uncle of Bradley. We were both in the office, he occupying the more lucrative position. I was married and had a modest, but comfortable, home in Seneca, in the State of Illinois. He too had been three years married, and had a son two years old.”

“Were you friends?”

“Not intimate friends, but we were on friendly terms. He had extravagant habits and spent more money than I – a family man – could afford to do. I had bought a house and lot, for which I agreed to pay the sum of two thousand dollars. I was paying this by slow degrees, but my salary was small, when the great temptation of my life came.”

The sick man paused in exhaustion, but soon proceeded.

“One evening Bradley Wentworth came to my house in a strange state of excitement, and called me to the door, I asked him in, but he declined. ‘I want you to take a walk with me, Lane,’ he said. I demurred, for it was a cold, damp evening, and suggested that it would be better to sit down by the fire, inside.

“‘No, no,’ he said impatiently, ‘what I have to say is most important, and it must be kept a profound secret.’

“Upon this I agreed to his proposal. I took my hat, told your mother that I would soon return, and went out with Wentworth. We had proceeded but a few rods when he said, ‘Lane, I’m in a terrible scrape.’

“‘What is it?’ I asked.

“‘Last week I forged a check on my uncle for five hundred dollars. It was paid at the bank. To-morrow the bank will send in their monthly statement, and among the checks will be the one I forged – ’

“‘Good heavens! what induced you to do it?’ I asked.

“‘I was in a tight place, and I yielded to sudden temptation,’ he answered bitterly.

“‘I advise you to go to your uncle early to-morrow and make a clean breast of it.’

“‘It would not do,’ he replied, ‘the old man has the strictest ideas of honor, and he would never forgive me.’

“‘It’s a bad position to be in,’ I said gravely.

“‘The worst possible. You know that I am generally recognized as my uncle’s heir, and he is worth three hundred thousand dollars. You see that if my uncle finds out what has happened I am a ruined man, for he will dismiss me from his employment with a tarnished name.’