"Now don't go wandering off, Nat; but tell me if he was a pretty, nice, smart child," said Ruth, with an eye to the hero's future capabilities.
"Not a bit pretty," laughed Nat, "for he grew up tall and thin, with big eyes and a queer brow. He wasn't 'nice,' either, if you mean good, for he got angry sometimes and was lazy; but he tried,—oh! yes, he truly tried to be a dutiful lad. He wasn't 'smart,' Ruth; for he hated to study, and only loved story books, ballads, and plays, and liked to wander round alone in the woods better than to be with other boys. People laughed at him because of his queersome ways; but he couldn't help it,—he was born so, and it would come out."
"He was what Aunt Becky calls shiftless, I guess. She says you are; but I don't mind as long as you take care of me and tell me stories."
The boy sighed and shook his head as if a whole swarm of gnats were annoying him now. "He was grateful, anyhow, this fellow I'm telling about; for he loved the good folks and worked on the farm with all his might to pay them for their pity. He never complained; but he hated it, for delving day after day in the dirt made him feel as if he was nothing but a worm."
"We are all worms," Deacon Hurd says; "so the boy needn't have minded," said Ruth, trying to assume a primly pious expression, that sat very ill upon her blooming little face.
"But some worms can turn into butterflies, if they get a chance; so the boy did mind, Ruthy." And Nat looked out into the summer world with a longing glance, which proved that he already felt conscious of the folded wings and was eager to try them.
"Was he a God-fearing boy?" asked Ruth, with a tweak of the ear; for her friend showed signs of "wandering off" again into a world where her prosaic little mind could not follow him.
"He didn't fear God; he loved Him. Perhaps it was wrong; but somehow he couldn't believe in a God of wrath when he saw how good and beautiful the world was and how kind folks were to him. He felt as if the Lord was his father, for he had no other; and when he was lonesomest that thought was right comfortable and helpful to him. Was it wrong?" asked Nat of the child.
"I'm afraid Aunt Becky would think so. She's awful pious, and boxed my ears with a psalm-book last Sabbath, when I said I wished the lions would bite Daniel in the den, I was so tired of seeing them stare and roar at him. She wouldn't let me look at the pictures in the big Bible another minute, and gave me a long hymn to learn, shut up in the back bed-room. She's a godly woman, Deacon Hurd says; but I think she's uncommon strict."
"Shall I tell any more, or are you tired of this stupid boy?" said Nat, modestly.