The fact is, Mr. Belknap had already made the discovery, that if he would govern his boy, he must first govern himself.  This was not an easy task.  Yet he felt that it must be done.

“There comes that boy now,” said he, as he glanced forth, and saw John Thomas coming homeward at a very deliberate pace.  There was more of impatience in his tone of voice than he wished to betray to Aunt Mary, who let her beautiful, angel-like eyes rest for a moment or two, penetratingly, upon him.  The balancing power of that look was needed; and it performed its work.

Soon after, the loitering boy came in.  He had a package of nails in his hand, which he reached, half indifferently, to his father.

“The hammer!” John started with a half frightened air.

“Indeed, father, I forgot all about it!” said he, looking up with a flushed countenance, in which genuine regret was plainly visible.

“I’m sorry,” said Mr. Belknap, in a disappointed, but not angry or rebuking voice.  “I’ve been waiting a long time for you to come back, and now I must go to the store without nailing up that trellice for your mother’s honeysuckle and wisteria, as I promised.”

The boy looked at his father a moment or two with an air of bewilderment and surprise; then he said, earnestly: 

“Just wait a little longer.  I’ll run down to the store and get it for you in a minute.  I’m very sorry that I forgot it.”

“Run along, then,” said Mr. Belknap, kindly.

How fleetly the lad bounded away!  His father gazed after him with an emotion of surprise, not unmixed with pleasure.

“Yes—­yes,” he murmured, half aloud, “Mrs. Howitt never uttered a wiser saying.  ‘For love hath readier will than fear.’”

Quicker than even Aunt Mary, whose faith in kind words was very strong, had expected, John came in with the hammer, a bright glow on his cheeks and a sparkle in his eyes that strongly contrasted with the utter want of interest displayed in his manner a little while before.

“Thank you, my son,” said Mr. Belknap, as he took the hammer; “I could not have asked a prompter service.”

He spoke very kindly, and in a voice of approval.  “And now, John,” he added, with the manner of one who requests, rather than commands, “if you will go over to Frank Wilson’s, and tell him to come over and work for two or three days in our garden, you will oblige me very much.  I was going to call there as I went to the store this morning; but it is too late now.”

“O, I’ll go, father—­I’ll go,” replied the boy, quickly and cheerfully.  “I’ll run right over at once.”

“Do, if you please,” said Mr. Belknap, now speaking from an impulse of real kindness, for a thorough change had come over his feelings.  A grateful look was cast, by John Thomas, into his father’s face, and then he was off to do his errand.  Mr. Belknap saw, and understood the meaning of that look.