President's patience. He hung about the library; handled the
books; deranged the papers; ransacked the drawers; searched the
old purses and pocket-books for foreign coins; drew the
sword-cane; snapped the travelling-pistols; upset everything in
the corners, and penetrated the President's dressing-closet where
a row of tumblers, inverted on the shelf, covered caterpillars
which were supposed to become moths or butterflies, but never
did. The Madam bore with fortitude the loss of the tumblers which
her husband purloined for these hatcheries; but she made protest
when he carried off her best cut-glass bowls to plant with acorns
or peachstones that he might see the roots grow, but which, she
said, he commonly forgot like the caterpillars.

At that time the President rode the hobby of tree-culture, and
some fine old trees should still remain to witness it, unless
they have been improved off the ground; but his was a restless
mind, and although he took his hobbies seriously and would have
been annoyed had his grandchild asked whether he was bored like
an English duke, he probably cared more for the processes than
for the results, so that his grandson was saddened by the sight
and smell of peaches and pears, the best of their kind, which he
brought up from the garden to rot on his shelves for seed. With
the inherited virtues of his Puritan ancestors, the little boy
Henry conscientiously brought up to him in his study the finest
peaches he found in the garden, and ate only the less perfect.
Naturally he ate more by way of compensation, but the act showed
that he bore no grudge. As for his grandfather, it is even
possible that he may have felt a certain self-reproach for his
temporary role of schoolmaster -- seeing that his own career did
not offer proof of the worldly advantages of docile obedience --