“Where’s your hat?” now asked Mr. Belknap.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Well, find it, then.”

“I’ve looked everywhere.”

“Look again.  There!  What is that on the hat rack, just under my coat?”

The boy answered not, but walked moodily to the rack, and took his hat therefrom.

“Ready at last.  I declare I’m out of all patience with your slow movements and sulky manner.  What do you stand there for, knitting your brows and pouting your lips?  Straighten out your face, sir!  I won’t have a boy of mine put on such a countenance.”

The lad, thus angrily and insultingly rated, made a feeble effort to throw a few rays of sunshine into his face.  But, the effort died fruitless.  All was too dark, sullen, and rebellious within his bosom.

“See here.”  Mr. Belknap still spoke in that peculiar tone of command which always stifles self-respect in the one to whom it is addressed.

“Do you go down to Leslie’s and tell him to send me a good claw hammer and three pounds of eightpenny nails.  And go quickly.”

The boy turned off without a word of reply, and was slowly moving away, when his father said, sharply: 

“Look here, sir!”

John Thomas paused and looked back.

“Did you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did I tell you to do?”

“Go get a claw hammer and three pounds of eightpenny nails.”

“Very well.  Why did n’t you indicate, in some way, that you heard me?  Have n’t I already this morning read you a lecture about this very thing?  Now, go quickly.  I’m in a hurry.”

For all this impatience and authority on the part of Mr. Belknap, John Thomas moved away at a snail’s pace; and as the former in a state of considerable irritability, gazed after the boy, he felt strongly tempted to call him back, and give him a good flogging in order that he might clearly comprehend the fact of his being in earnest.  But as this flogging was an unpleasant kind of business, and had, on all previous occasions, been succeeded by a repentant and self-accusing state, Mr. Belknap restrained his indignant impulses.

“If that stubborn, incorrigible boy returns in half an hour, it will be a wonder,” muttered Mr. Belknap, as he came back into the sitting-room.  “I wish I knew what to do with him.  There is no respect or obedience in him.  I never saw such a boy.  He knows that I’m in a hurry; and yet he goes creeping along like a tortoise, and ten chances to one, if he does n’t forget his errand altogether before he is halfway to Leslie’s.  What is to be done with him, Aunt Mary?”

Mr. Belknap turned, as he spoke to an elderly lady, with a mild, open face, and clear blue eyes, from which goodness looked forth as an angel.  She was a valued relative, who was paying him a brief visit.

Aunt Mary let her knitting rest in her lap, and turned her mild, thoughtful eyes upon the speaker.