A silent man, he stood there silently until the train arrived and his son was about to board it. Then he suddenly reached out and pressed some bills into his son’s hand. Twenty-five dollars. Sam never forgot that; he talked about that twenty-five dollars for the rest of his life. “God knows how he saved it,” he would say. “He never had any extra money. We earned just enough to live. It broke me up, him handing me that twenty-five dollars. I often wondered what he did without, what sacrifice he and my mother made.” And he never forgot the four words his father said to him as he climbed aboard
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