"I don't know," answered Neddy. "I'm sorry I didn't ask teacher that. P'r'aps he didn't know where to send the letter. But now I'm going to tell you about the bad son. He had a whole bagful of money, and he thought it would last him forever. So he kept buying things and spending his money till one day he put his hand in his bag and it was all gone, every bit. He was hungry, but he had not a penny to buy food. He didn't dare to kneel down, as we do, and say, 'Our Father, give us this day our daily bread,' because he had been awfully wicked, getting drunk and lying and swearing, and doing everything bad. You can't guess, any of you, what he did at last. Why, he was that hungry he had to hire out to a farmer who kept pigs, and he watched his chance when nobody was looking, to steal some of the pigs' food. Before this he used to wear gay clothes, now he was all in rags. One day he sat down on a stump of a tree. He was awful homesick. He was tired of being so bad. He thought about his old home, and how kind his father used to be, and what good things he had to eat, He remembered how the men working on the farm had enough to eat. All at once he began to cry, 'I wish I was home. I'm awfully lonely way off here, and nobody speaks a kind word to me. Nobody gives me even the pigs' food. I'm ragged, too, and filthy. Oh, what a fool I was to leave my dear old home!'" "He cried and sobbed, but nobody pitied him." "Say, Neddy, did he die among the pigs?" asked a big girl, putting a finger in her eye to keep the tears back. "I'm coming to the good part now. After he'd been crying a good while, and feeling real sorry he had been so wicked, he thought he heard a voice asking,— "'Why don't you go home?'" "'Oh, father wouldn't have me back!'" "'Yes, he would. He loves you still.'" "'Loves me! Can it be true? Then I'll go right off.' So he got up off the stump and started. Teacher didn't say how far it was, but at last he came to a place where he could see his home. His heart beat dreadfully. 'Will he take me in? Will he?' Now I'm going to tell you the very words he told himself he would say to his father. Teacher made us all learn them, 'cause she said every one of us could say them to God, our Heavenly Father. "'And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, the father saw him, and had compassion unto him, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. "'But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and put ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.'" "Is that 'ere a true story? You don't say he took him right back again? Whew! I guess he was glad he went home."