Taking such leisure hours as I had,—­for I was obliged to work most of the time on the farm,—­I crept away in the loft of an old building, and finally succeeded in finishing my task.  But, now that the box was done, my troubles were by no means ended.  It would be seen.  I could not always keep it out of sight.  My brothers, and sisters, and playmates, would examine it, and possibly my father would get his eye upon it!  Suppose he should, and ask me where those nails came from?

O, how my poor brain was racked to invent some false story by which I could escape detection!  I thought of saying that they were old ones which I had polished up so as to appear new, and I even filed down the rust on the head of an old nail to see if they would look sufficiently alike.  But nothing of this kind would answer.  The cheat, I thought, would be detected; and so I was obliged, after all my trouble and suffering, to keep my box hidden away when it was done.  Every time I went to look at it, those bright new nail-heads were staring out at me, ready to reveal my crime to any one who saw them.

For a long time, I did not dare to go to my uncles again.  True, he knew nothing of my wrong; but I felt guilty, and did not care to see him.  Finally, after some time had passed away, though I had by no means forgotten the theft, and still suffered much every time it was thought of, I ventured to call and see him.  I could hardly avoid the impression that he must know what I had done, and would accuse me of it; and when he met me in the yard at his door; patted my cheek with a half-laughing, half-reproving look; asked why I had stayed away from him so long; and said, that, to punish me, he should go and get me some very nice apples from the garden;—­I could bear it no longer.  It seemed as though my heart would break.  What I said, I have now forgotten.  I remember that I cried very heartily, and, as soon as my tears would allow it, told him the whole story!

I can still see, fresh in my memory, the sad look that came over him as I confessed my crime; but not a single harsh or unkind word did he utter.  He told me that it was very wrong; that I had acted nobly in confessing it; and that, if I had only asked him in the first place, he would gladly have given me all I wanted.

Thinking I had suffered enough already, he promised not to tell my parents, in case I continued a good boy, and advised me to destroy the box and bring him back the nails, as no one could then suspect what had been done but ourselves.

His kindness, I confess, pained me very much.  I think nothing could have tempted me to do him any wrong again.

I loved him better than ever before.  He never alluded to the subject afterwards, but I always thought of it when I saw him.  He died in a short time; and, twenty years after, as I stood by his grave, the circumstance came up, clear and distinct, to my recollection.  I have not, indeed, from that to the present hour, felt the least temptation to commit any wrong of the kind without recalling it; and, if all my young readers will think seriously how much suffering that one act cost me, and how much happier I should otherwise have been, I am confident that they will never commit a similar offence so long as they remember the story of the boy who stole the nails.