“Oh, into the butter, cheese, and bacon line.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Don’t you? Well, it seems to me that sundry pounds of butter which have not spread themselves lately on your bread or toast, as they ought to have done, are intended to turn up somewhere one of these days.”
The effect of this little speech on Amos was manifestly very disconcerting; he turned red, looked confused, then with knitted brows gazed at the window. Walter, sorry to have given him pain, was just about to make some further remark, when his eyes fell on the hands of Miss Huntingdon, which were crossed on the table. Nodding his head profoundly towards his aunt, he dashed off at once into another subject, and his brother soon recovered his equanimity.
That afternoon, Walter, with his sister leaning on his arm, came and seated himself by his aunt, who had taken her needlework to the summer-house. Amos did not join them, being busily engaged in preparations for the morrow’s journey. “And now, auntie,” said Walter, “here are two very docile and attentive scholars come for a promised lesson on moral courage.”
“Oh, but I have not promised them a lesson,” said Miss Huntingdon, laughing.
“No, auntie, perhaps not; but your hands have,—these hands, which were crossed at breakfast, they have promised the lesson.”
“Well, dear boy, that is true in a measure, but I hardly know how to begin. I have nothing to rebuke or find fault with in you, unless it was just a little want of consideration in your dealing with Amos; but I am sure you meant no unkindness.”
“Certainly not, auntie, not a bit of it. But now I don’t quite understand about Amos and his leaving off taking butter. It has something to do with that selling of his pony, I’m sure. Perhaps you can explain it, and give us a lesson of moral courage from it, illustrated by historical examples.”
“I will try, dear boy. The fact is—and I am under no promise of secrecy in the matter; for while Amos is not one to sound a trumpet before him to proclaim his good deeds, he has no wish to hide them, as though he were half-ashamed of them—the fact is that Amos wishes to save every penny just now, in order to be perfectly free to carry out anything he may see it right to undertake in this scheme of his for bringing back your dear mother once more amongst us. Every farthing spent on himself he grudges, and he would not for the world draw on your father; so he has not only sold his pony, but has also given up taking butter at meals, having made me promise, as I am housekeeper and hold the purse, to give him in money the worth of the butter he would eat, that he may put it to this special fund for his cherished scheme. And I have gladly consented to his wish. It is but a small matter, and he knows it, but it is through small things that great good is brought about. As Martin Tupper says, ‘Trifles light as air are levers in the building up of character.’ This self-denial on the part of dear Amos brings out and heightens the nobility of his character; and when the occasion for such self-denial shall have passed away, it will leave him far advanced on the upward and heavenward road.”