The feelings of vexation and anger against the bad boys began to rise again in Rollo’s mind, the moment he began to talk about them, and he was just going to cry. His mother stopped him, saying,
“You need not tell me about him any more. I see how it is.”
“How what is?” said Rollo.
“How it is about your being sorry. Your father told me that, if you were truly penitent for what happened about those boys, I should find you, when I came to talk with you about it, grieved for your own fault, and if you were not penitent, you would only be angry at theirs. I see which it is.”
Rollo was silent a moment. He felt the truth and justice of the distinction; but, like all boys who are not sorry for the wrong they have done, he could not resist the temptation to try to justify himself by throwing the blame on others. So he began to tell her something more about “that cross old Jim,” but she interrupted him, and told him she did not wish to hear any thing about that “cross old Jim.” He was not her boy, she said, and she had nothing to do with him or his faults.
She then went to talking about other things, and helped Rollo begin to fill his basket again. He showed her where the berries were thickest, and led her round behind a rock to show her a beautiful wild flower that he had found; he said he did not bring it to her, for his father had told him not to touch any flowers or berries that they did not know, for fear they might be poisonous.
After a little while, Rollo’s mother left him and Lucy together, and went back lo where his father and uncle were.
“Well,” said they, “how did you find Rollo?”
“Pleasant, but not penitent,” said she Lucy and Rollo went on gathering berries some time after Rollo’s mother left him, in silence. Rollo felt rather unhappy, but he was not subdued. His heart was still proud and unhumbled, and after a time, he said to Lucy,
“It seems to me very strange that my mother does not think those boys were to blame any for doing so.”