The Quaker smiled, and went into the house with the children. He staid to tea; and at the table he observed once or twice that Pollio did not obey his mother the very moment she spoke, and he feared his little pet was growing naughty. “Napoleon,” said he, as the little boy came skipping out after supper to see him mount his horse. (He would never call him Pollio, though he disliked his real name, for “Napoleon Bonaparte was a fighting-man.”) “Napoleon!”
“Sir?” said Pollio.
“Thee is a great favorite of mine, Napoleon; but I have a word to say against thy conduct to-day.”
Pollio cast down his eyes. Mr. Littlefield was an old-fashioned man, who did not use very good grammar; but everybody loved him dearly, and Pollio would rather have been chidden by almost any one else.
“Thee has one of the best mothers that ever lived, my boy. I want thee always to mind thy mother.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And remember this: A child that won’t mind its mother won’t mind its God!”
“Click, clack,” went the horse’s hoofs; and Pollio stood on the fence till horse and rider were far out of sight. Still these words rang in his ears:—
“A child that won’t mind its mother won’t mind its God.”
Next morning he and Teddy were wakened by the firing of guns; and both sprang out of bed with a bound, and Pollio with a “whoop.” He had a new “pair o’ clo’es,” which he was not to wear till next Sunday; but I grieve to say, that, thinking he could not do too much for his country, he put them on, and ran down stairs after Teddy.