Read "The Last Penny" by Edwin Lefevre online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
TOMMY found it difficult during the first few days to adjust himself to his new work. He had fixed his mind upon doing Herculean labors, in the belief that the reward would thereby come the sooner. Moreover, in taking on a heavy burden he had imagined he would find it easier to expiate his own participation in his father's sin of love. Twice a week Tommy wrote to Mr. Leigh, and told him never his new feelings, but always his new problems. And the secret, after the manner of all secrets, proved a bond, something to be shared by both. Tommy did not realize it concretely, but it was his own sorrow that developed the filial sense in him.
His disappointment over the unimportance of his position he endeavored to soothe by the thought that he was but a raw recruit still in the training-camp. In a measure he had to create his own duties, and he was forced to seek ways of extending their scope, of making himself into an indispensable cog in Mr. Thompson's machine.