“I will throw it away,” said Rodolphus, “and I'll jump into the water myself, in the deepest place that I can find, if he won't let me have it to buy my rabbit with.”
“I would let him have it, husband,” said Mrs. Linn, “if he wants it so very much. I don't care much about it, on the whole. I don't think the rabbit will be any great trouble.”
When Rodolphus heard his mother say this, he considered the case as decided, and he walked off from the flat rock to the shore, and from the shore up the path to his mother. There was some further conversation between Rodolphus and his parents in respect to the rabbit, but it was finally concluded that the rabbit should be bought, and Rodolphus was allowed to keep the quarter of a dollar accordingly.
Such was the way in which Rodolphus was brought up in his childhood. It is not surprising that he came in the end to be a very bad boy.
II. Ellen.
The next morning after Rodolphus had obtained his quarter of a dollar in the manner we have described, he proposed to Annie to go with him to buy his rabbit. It would not be very far, he said.
“I should like to go very much,” said Annie, “if my mother will let me.”
“O, she will let you,” said Rodolphus, “I can get her to let you.”
Rodolphus waited till his father had gone away after breakfast, before asking his mother to let Annie go with him. He was afraid that his father might make some objection to the plan. After his father had gone, he went to ask his mother.
At first she said very decidedly that Annie could not go.