youngest son, who was threatened with death
in his youth, to the "Assembly's Catechism" as a means of filling his
mind with spiritual wisdom, and fitting him for that higher state to
which he might soon be called. Ephraim had been strictly forbidden to
attend school--beyond reading he had no education; but his mother
resolved that spiritual education he should have, whether he would or
not, and whether the doctor would or not. So Ephraim laboriously read
the Bible through, a chapter at a time, and he went, step by step,
through the wisdom of the Divines of Westminster. No matter how much
he groaned over it, his mother was pitiless. Sometimes Caleb plucked
up courage and interceded. "I don't believe he feels quite ekal to
learnin' of his stint to-night," he would say, and then his eyes
would fall before the terrible stern pathos in Deborah's, as she
would reply in her deep voice: "If he can't learn nothin' about
books, he's got to learn about his own soul. He's got to, whether it
hurts him or not. I shouldn't think, knowin' what you know, you'd say
anything, Caleb Thayer."

And Caleb's old face would quiver suddenly like a child's; he would
rub the back of his hand across his eyes, huddle himself into his
arm-chair, and say no more; and Deborah would sharply order Ephraim,
spying anxiously over his catechism, to go on with the next question.

It was nearly dark to-night when Ephraim finished his stint; he was
slower than usual, his progress being somewhat hindered by the
surreptitious eating of a hard red apple, which he had stowed away in
his jacket-pocket. Hard apples were strictly forbidden to Ephraim as
articles of diet, and to eat many during the season required
diplomacy.

The boy's jaws worked with furious zeal over the apple during his
mother's temporary absences from the room on household tasks, and on
her return were mumbling solemnly and innocently the precepts of the
catechism, after a spasmodic swallowing. His father was nodding in
his chair and saw nothing, and had he seen would not have betrayed
him. After a little inefficient remonstrance on his own account,
Caleb always subsided, and watched anxiously lest Deborah should
discover the misdemeanor and descend upon Ephraim.

To-night, after the task was finished, Deborah sent Ephraim stumbling
out of the room to bed, muttering remonstrances, his eyes as wild and
restless as a cat's, his ears full of the nocturnal shouts of his
play-fellows that came th