There is Confusion by Jessie Redmon Fauset

It may seem a cold-blooded thing to say, but the dying of Meriwether Bye was about the best thing he could have done for his son, Peter. Certainly that was what Miss Susan Graves thought as she viewed rather grimly the small and motley collection of belongings which Peter transferred to her home in his little express wagon from his father's former landlady, Mrs. Reading. The collection consisted of a well-worn extra suit of clothes, another pair of shoes, some underwear in sad need of patching, some books chiefly on physiology and anatomy, the Bye Family Bible, a little old black testament, and a box of letters. There was also a big railroad map which Peter lugged along under his arm and from which he stubbornly refused to be parted. Meriwether, in his brighter moods, used to refer to his "runs" as "business-trips" and would point out to Peter just where he would go on such and such a date. The boy learned a lot of geography in this way, and was talking to his playmates about Duluth and Jacksonville, Sacramento and Denver, before most of them knew that they personally were living in the country's metropolis.

The books on medicine and anatomy had been well thumbed by Peter, too. Meriwether had received them from old Isaiah, his father, and had carried them around on his runs to impress his co-workers in the Pullman service.