to stand it Sundays, and the day'll be harder to git through than
ever. To-morrow I'll be back in the kitchen again, and can eat my
victuals without Miss Jocelyn looking on and saying to herself,
'He ain't nice; he don't look pretty'; and then a-showin' me by the
most delicate little ways how I ought to perform. She's got Roger
under her thumb or he wouldn't have cleaned up this wagon in the
middle of the night, for all I know, but I'm too old and set to be
made over by a girl."

Thus grumbling and mumbling to himself, Mr. Atwood prepared to take
his family to the white, tree-shadowed meeting-house, at which he
seldom failed to appear, for the not very devotional reason that
it helped him to get through the day. Like the crab-apple tree in
the orchard, he was a child of the soil, and savored too much of
his source.

Roger was of finer metal, and while possessing his father's shrewdness,
hard common-sense and disposition to hit the world between the eyes
if it displeased him, his nature was ready at slight incentive,
to throw off all coarseness and vulgarity. The greater number of
forceful American citizens are recruited from the ranks of just
such young men--strong, comparatively poor, somewhat rude in mind
and person at the start, but of such good material that they are
capable of a fine finish.

Roger had grown naturally, and healthily, thus far. He had surpassed
the average boy on the play-ground, and had fallen slightly below
him in the school-house, but more from indifference and self-assurance
than lack of ability. Even his father's narrow thrift could not
complain of his work when he would work, but while a little fellow