is too easy; it's too much like taking candy from a kid. And
he was mighty square about it, too, and he never told Aunt Maggie how
he got the cold, for he slipped into bed that morning and she didn't
know he was out."

Another time the boys set him to gathering the puff-balls that grew in
abundance in the hay meadow, assuring him that they were gopher-eggs
and if placed under a hen would hatch out young gophers.

Stanley was wild with enthusiasm when he heard this and hastened to
pack a box full to send home. "They _will_ be surprised," he said.
Fortunately, Mrs. Corbett found out about this before the box was
sent, and she had to tell him that the boys were only in fun.

When she told him that the boys had been just having sport there came
over his face such a look of sadness and pain, such a deeply hurt
look, that Mrs. Corbett went back to the barn and thrashed her sturdy
young nephew, all over again.

When the matter came up for discussion again, Stanley implored her not
to speak of it any more, and not to hold it against the boys. "It was
not their fault at all," he said; "it all comes about on account of my
being--not quite right. I am not quite like other boys, but when they
play with me I forget it and I believe what they say. There
is--something wrong with me,--and it makes people want--to have sport
with me; but it is not their fault at all."

"Well, they won't have sport with you when I am round," declared Mrs.
Corbett stoutly.

Years rolled by and Stanley still cherished the hope that some day
"permission" would come for him to go home. He grew very fast and
became rather a fine-looking young man. Once, emboldened by a
particularly kind letter from his mother, he made the request that he
should be allowed to go home for a few days. "If you will let me come
home even for one day, dearest mother," he wrote, "I will come right
back content, and father will not need to see me at all. I want to
stand once more before that beautiful Tissot picture of Christ holding
the wounded lamb in his arms, and I would like to see the hawthorn
hedge when it is in bloom as it will be soon, and above all, dear
mother, I want to see you. And I will come directly away."

He held this letter for many days, and was only emboldened to send it
by Mrs. Corbett's heartiest assurances that it was a splendid letter
and that his mother would like it!

"I do not want to give my mother trouble," he said. "She has already
had much tr