After Long Years and Other Stories

days at his father's ancestral home. The earth looked gay in all the beauty of spring, and the sea shone in the rosy light of the morning sun. Antonio's heart glowed with ador

verence God and respect the laws. All his talents were being carefully developed. At a great personal sacrifice, they had sent him to the high school. Here Antonio denied himself many pleasures in which his richer classmates indulged, and tried

, were drawing water from a spring which gushed from the rock. They were pirates from Algiers. As soon as they caught sight of the boy, they sprang upon him, like tigers upon a harmless lamb, seized

s, and turning his eyes towards the heavens, he cried aloud to God for strength t

ed the boy much sympathy. Another prisoner, a sailor, grieved over the old parents whose mainstay he had been for many years. "Oh," sighed he, "now hunger and want will overtake them." Another, a fisherman, somewhat older than the rest, was the saddest of them all. He sat apart at

hem all and gave them renewed hope. Then the fisherman stood up and said: "This boy has been sent to cheer us. Let us trust