"But that is not all your resolution demands. Don't you ever go beyond the truth or stop short of it, in school or in play?"
"I'm afraid I do, sir," faltered Joel, deeply humbled to be called upon for this confession.
"Do you sometimes hide what you ought to confess, or tell a story so as to conceal your share of the blame and throw it on some one else? Can you remember any such cases?
"Yes, sir, I think of some things," said he, knowing well that his father was thinking of particular cases, fresh also to his own memory. Conscience and memory were becoming most uncomfortable monitors.
Here Mr. Goodwill stirred the fire till its bright blaze fell on all objects, bringing them clearly out of the twilight, and then went on, though Joel said he thought they had better not read any more. "Fourth, I am resolved not to be absent from school or late once this year, if I am well."
"I went to Uncle Joe's in the spring, you know, so of course I couldn't keep that."
"You went from choice, though."
"Yes, sir; but I did keep it up a month, I know."
His father then went more rapidly over the remaining resolutions, simply desiring him when he came to one he was sure of having kept, to speak. These were of various degrees of importance; resolves to be first in his Latin class, to obtain a certain prize at school, to drink no tea and coffee, to give up by-words, &c. To no one of all these could Joel say Aye, excepting to the coffee and tea resolution. That, with help from his mother, he had carried out.
The reason why this exposure was particularly mortifying, was because Joel was quite proud of being considered a pretty good boy. He had seldom been so much humbled before. After a little pause his father said, kindly, seeing the boy's troubled face, "You thought you should do all these things when you wrote this, did you not?"