“I don’t see any good at all in it,” he said; “the museum’s just as empty as it was before. I think we’d better break it all up into tiny bits and throw it away.”
“But the coins—” said Ambrose.
“Well, then,” was David’s next suggestion, “we’d better tell.”
“If ever you dare to be so mean as that, I’ll never speak to you or play with you again,” returned Ambrose. “So there!”
David looked very sulky.
“I hate having it in my garden,” he said. “I’m always wanting to plant things just where it is.”
Disputes became so frequent between the boys that at length, by a silent agreement, they avoided the subject altogether, and by degrees the crock ceased to be so constantly in Ambrose’s thoughts. But even when he had managed to forget it entirely for a little while, something always happened to bring it back to his memory, and this was the case after Nancy had made her confession of the broken window.
“My dear Nancy,” said Mrs Hawthorne when she was told of it, “you knew it was wrong to throw things at your brother, didn’t you?”
“Why, yes, mother,” said Nancy; “but I didn’t think of it till after the window was broken.”
“But it would have been just as wrong if the ruler had not hit anyone or broken anything. The wrong thing was the feeling which made you throw it.”