of soothing his own feelings of guilt, and securing his mother's
favour, by the good deed of carrying her home some acorns. So, when he
came into the house, he took off his hat carefully, with the acorns in
it, and holding it in both hands, marched up to his mother with a
smiling face, and look of great self-satisfaction, and said, 'Here,
mother, I have got you some acorns.'"

"And what did his mother say?" asked Caleb.

"She shook her head sorrowfully, and told him to go and put the acorns
away. She knew where he had been.

"Then presently George came in. He put away his cap, walked in softly,
and put his face down in his mother's lap, and said, with tears and
sobs, 'Mother, I have been doing something very wrong.' Now, which of
these do you think came to his mother right?'"

"Why,--George," said he, "certainly."

"Yes, and that was the way the publican came; but the pharisee covered
up all his sins, being pleased and satisfied himself, and thinking that
God would be pleased and satisfied with his _acorns_."

Here Madam Rachel paused, and Caleb sat still, thinking of what he had
heard.

Madam Rachel then closed her eyes, and, in a low, gentle voice, she
spoke a few words of prayer; and then she told Caleb that he must always
remember in all his prayers to confess his sins fully and freely, and
never cover them up and conceal them, with an idea that his good deeds
made him worthy. Then she put Caleb down, and he ran down stairs to
play.

He asked his grandmother to let him go over the bridge, so as to be
ready to meet Raymond, when he should come back with the cow. She at
first advised him not to go, for she was afraid, she said, that he might
get lost, or fall into the brook; but Caleb was very desirous to go, and
finally she consented. He had a little whip that David had made for him.
The handle was made from the branch of a beach-tree, which David cut
first to make a cane of, for himself; but he broke his cane, and so he
gave Caleb the rest of the stick for a whip-handle. The lash was made
of leather. It was cut out of a round piece of thick leather, round and
round, as they made leather shoe-strings, and then rolled upon a board.
This is a fine way to make lashes and reins for boys.

Caleb took his whip for company, and sauntered along over the bridge.
When he had crossed the bridge, he walked along the bank of the stream,
watching the grass-hoppers and butterflies, and now and then cutting off
the head o