"Erick," said the pastor earnestly, "you want to be an honorable man and you mean it seriously so far as you understand the word, I have seen that; but that is not the way which will lead you there. See, you can understand, that you have made friends with a crowd of boys who are on no good road; for, to run about wild on Sunday, when the bells call to church, and to be obliged to hide behind barns from nice people,—you did not learn that from your mother, did you, Erick?"
Erick had to lower his open eyes and answered very low: "No."
"But worse things turn up if one goes with bad boys," the pastor continued. "Through them, one often comes where one never wanted to come. See, if you had not been saved from it through your mother's song which you heard, you would have been caught with the others in the vineyard as a thief, and punished as such. Well, Erick, if your mother should have had to hear that!"
Erick had grown dark red in the face. He was silent for some time, visibly from fear and perplexity, then he asked timidly: "Can I no longer grow to be an honorable man?"
"Yes, indeed, Erick," said the pastor now kindly, "that you can. You know now on what road one cannot go; think of that and keep yourself far from bad companions. And now I will tell you how you can become a man of honor. Do you remember how the verse in your mother's song goes, which begins:
"'Thy Zion scatters palms
And greening twigs for Thee,
But I in glorious psalms
Will lift my soul to Thee!'"
In an instant Erick continued: