seated quietly in his arm-chair, reading a newspaper, and Rollo came up
to him, pulling down the paper with his hands, and looking up into his
father's face, so as to stop his reading at once. Heedless boys very
often come to ask favors in this way.

His father gently moved him back and said,

"No, my son, it is not convenient for Jonas to go to-morrow. Besides, I
am busy now, and cannot talk with you;--you must go away."

Rollo turned away disappointed, and went slowly back through the
kitchen. His mother, who was there, and who heard all that passed, as
the doors were open, said to him, as he walked by her, "What a foolish
way that was to ask him, Rollo! You might have known it would have done
no good."

Rollo did not answer, but he went and sat down on the step of the door,
and was just beginning to think what the foolishness was in his way of
asking his father, when a little bird came hopping along in the yard. He
ran in to ask his mother to give him some milk to feed the bird with.
She smiled, and told him milk was good for kittens, but not for birds;
and she gave him some crumbs of bread. Rollo threw the crumbs out, but
they only frightened the little thing away.

That night, when Rollo went to bed, his father said, that when he was
all ready, he would come up and see him. When he came into his chamber,
Rollo called out to him,

"O, father, look out the window, and see what a beautiful ring there is
round the moon."