Thus there was a general reconciliation all round, and Bruno, Foxy, Hiram, and Ralph became, all four of them, very excellent friends.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
This story reminds me of another one relating to the burning of a small building in the bottom of a garden, called a tool-house. I will here relate that story, and then tell more about Bruno. It will be seen that this tool-house took fire in a very singular way. Precisely how Ralph’s garden-house took fire never was known. It was probably in some way connected with the matches which Ralph left upon the floor. Whether he stepped upon one of them, and thus ignited it, and left it slowly burning—or whether some mouse came by, and set one of them on fire by gnawing upon it—or whether one of the matches got into a crack of the floor, and was then inflamed by getting pinched there by some springing or working of the boards, produced by the gardener’s walking over the floor or wheeling the wheelbarrow in—whether, in fine, the mischief originated in either of these ways, or in some other wholly unknown, could never be ascertained.
At all events, however—and this is the conclusion of the story—the garden-house was soon rebuilt, and Ralph was effectually cured of his resentment and enmity by the noble and magnanimous spirit which Hiram and Bruno exhibited in saving his bird.
Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.
Three times I have put this precept in the story, in order that you may be sure to remember it.
THE BURNING OF THE TOOL-HOUSE.
When one has committed a fault, to acknowledge it frankly, and to bear the consequences of it one’s self submissively, is magnanimous and noble. On the contrary, to resort to cunning tricks to conceal it, and especially to attempt to throw the blame of it upon others who are innocent, is mean and contemptible.