“Very likely.”

“No place like home, after all is done and said.  Who was the fellow that wrote that song, mother?”

“I forget; the paper said he spent a great many years in foreign parts.  My sake!  Bobby; one would think by your talk that you had been away from home for a year.”

“It seems like a year,” said he, as he transferred another quarter of the famous apple pie to his plate.  “I miss home very much.  I don’t more than half like being among strangers so much.”

“It is your own choice; no one wants you to go away from home.”

“I must pay my debts, any how.  Don’t I owe Squire Lee sixty dollars?”

“But I can pay that.”

“It is my affair, you see.”

“If it is your affair, then I owe you sixty dollars.”

“No, you don’t; I calculate to pay my board now.  I am old enough and big enough to do something.”

“You have done something ever since you was old enough to work.”

“Not much; I don’t wonder that miserable old hunker of a Hardhand twitted me about it.  By the way, have you heard any thing from him?”

“Not a thing.”

“He has got enough of us, I reckon.”

“You mustn’t insult him, Bobby, if you happen to see him.”

“Never fear me.”

“You know the Bible says we must love our enemies, and pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us.”

“I should pray that the Old Nick might get him.”

“No, Bobby; I hope you haven’t forgot all your Sunday school lessons.”

“I was wrong, mother,” replied Bobby, a little moved.  “I did not mean so.  I shall try to think as well of him as I can; but I can’t help thinking, if all the world was like him, what a desperate hard time we should have of it.”

“We must thank the Lord that he has given us so many good and true men.”

“Such as Squire Lee, for instance,” added Bobby, as he rose from the table and put his chair back against the wall.  “The squire is fit to be a king; and though I believe in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, I wouldn’t mind seeing a crown upon his head.”

“He will receive his crown in due time,” replied Mrs. Bright, piously.

“The squire?”

“The crown of rejoicing, I mean.”

“Just so; the squire is a nice man; and I know another just like him.”

“Who!”

“Mr. Bayard; they are as near alike as two peas.”

“I am dying to know about your journey.”

“Wait a minute, mother, till we clear away the supper things;” and Bobby took hold, as he had been accustomed, to help remove and wash the dishes.

“You needn’t help now, Bobby.”

“Yes, I will, mother.”

Some how our hero’s visit to the city did not seem to produce the usual effect upon him; for a great many boys, after they had been abroad, would have scorned to wash dishes and wipe them.  A week in town has made many a boy so smart that you couldn’t touch him with a ten foot pole.  It starches them up so stiff that sometimes they don’t know their own mothers, and deem it a piece of condescension to speak a word to the patriarch in a blue frock who had the honor of supporting them in childhood.