taples style of exordium had
only a Sabbath significance, turned to her offspring abruptly:--

"And what's these yer doin's now, John? and me a slavin' to send ye to
school?"

Thus appealed to, Johnny looked for a reply at his feet, at his arm, and
at the kettle. Then he said: "I ain't done nothin', but he"--indicating
Staples--"hez been nigh onter pullin' off my arm."

"It's now almost a week ago," continued Mr. Staples, waving aside the
interruption with a smile of painful Christian tolerance, "or perhaps
ten days--I won't be too sure--that the schoolmaster discovered
that Johnny had in his possession two or three flakes of fine river
gold--each of the value of half a dollar, or perhaps sixty-two and one
half cents. On being questioned where he got them he refused to say;
although subsequently he alleged that he had 'found' them. It being a
single instance, he was given the benefit of the doubt, and nothing more
was said about it. But a few days after he was found trying to pass off,
at Mr. Smith's store, two other flakes of a different size, and a small
nugget of the value of four or five dollars. At this point I was called
in; he repeated to me, I grieve to say, the same untruthfulness, and
when I suggested to him the obvious fact that he had taken it from one
of the miner's sluice boxes and committed the grievous sin of theft,
he wickedly denied it--so that we are prevented from carrying out the
Christian command of restoring it even ONE fold, instead of four or five
fold as the Mosaic Law might have required. We were, alas! unable to
ascertain anything from the miners themselves, though I grieve to say
they one and all agreed that their 'take' that week was not at all what
they had expected. I even went so far as to admit the possibility of his
own statement, and besought him at least to show me where he had found
it. He at first refused with great stubbornness of temper, but later
consented to accompany me privately this afternoon to the spot." Mr.
Staples paused, and sinking his voice gloomily, and with his eyes fixed
upon Johnny, continued slowly: "When I state that, after several times
trying to evade me on the way, he finally led me to the top of Bald
Hill, where there is not a scrap of soil, and not the slightest
indication, and still persisted that he found it THERE, you will
understand, Sister Medliker, the incorrigibility of his conduct, and
how he has added the sin of 'false witness' to his breaking th