When he reached the front door, as he stopped to scrape his feet on the sharp stone there, as all considerate boys who love their mothers do, before they go into the house, he heard the angry tones of Mr. Hardhand.  He was scolding and abusing his mother because she could not pay him the twenty-five dollars.

Bobby’s blood boiled with indignation, and his first impulse was to serve him as he had served Tom Spicer, only a few moments before; but Bobby, as we have before intimated, was a peaceful boy, and not disposed to quarrel with any person; so he contented himself with muttering a few hard words.

“The wretch!  What business has he to talk to my mother in that style?” said he to himself.  “I have a great mind to kick him out of the house.”

But Bobby’s better judgment came to his aid; and perhaps he realized that he and his mother would only get kicked out in return.  He could battle with Mr. Hardhand, but not with the power which his wealth gave him; so, like a great many older persons in similar circumstances, he took counsel of prudence rather than impulse.

“Bear ye one another’s burdens,” saith the Scripture; but Bobby was not old enough or astute enough to realize that Mr. Hardhand’s burden was his wealth, his love of money; that it made him little better than a Hottentot; and he could not feel as charitably towards him as a Christian should towards his erring, weak brother.

Setting his pole by the door, he entered the room where Hardhand was abusing his mother.

CHAPTER IV.

In which Bobby gets out of one scrape, and into another.

Bobby was so indignant at the conduct of Mr. Hardhand, that he entirely forgot the adventure of the morning; and he did not even think of the gold he had in his pocket.  He loved his mother; he knew how hard she had worked for him and his brother and sisters; that she had burned the “midnight oil” at her clamps; and it made him feel very bad to near her abused as Mr. Hardhand was abusing her.  It was not her fault that she had not the money to pay him.  She had been obliged to spend a large portion of her time over the sick beds of her children, so that she could not earn so much money as usual; while the family expenses were necessarily much greater.

Bobby knew also that Mr. Hardhand was aware of all the circumstances of his mother’s position, and the more he considered the case the more brutal and inhuman was his course.

As our hero entered the family room with the basket of fish on his arm, the little crusty old man fixed the glance of his evil eye upon him.

“There is that boy, marm, idling away his time by the river, and eating you out of house and home,” said the wretch.  “Why don’t you set him to work, and make him earn something?”

“Bobby is a very good boy,” meekly responded the widow Bright.