I.
"Please, mother, do sit down and let me try my hand," said Fred Liscom, a bright active boy, twelve years old. Mrs. Liscom, looking pale and worn, was moving languidly about, trying to clear away the breakfast she had scarcely tasted.
She smiled, and said, "You, Fred, you wash dishes?" "Yes, indeed, mother," answered Fred; "I should be a poor scholar if I couldn't, when I've seen you do it so many times. Just try me."
A look of relief came over his mother's face as she seated herself in her low rocking-chair. Fred washed the dishes and put them in the closet. He swept the kitchen, brought up the potatoes from the cellar for the dinner and washed them, and then set out for school.
Fred's father was away from home, and as there was some cold meat in the pantry, Mrs. Liscom found it an easy task to prepare dinner. Fred hurried home from school, set the table, and again washed the dishes.
He kept on in this way for two or three days, till his mother was able to resume her usual work, and he felt amply rewarded when the doctor, who happened in one day, said, "Well, madam, it's my opinion that you would have been very sick if you had not kept quiet."
The doctor did not know how the "quiet" had been secured, nor how the boy's heart bounded at his words. Fred had given up a great deal of what boys hold dear, for the purpose of helping his mother, coasting and skating being just at this time in perfection.
Besides this, his temper and his patience had been severely. tried. He had been in the habit of going early to school, and staying to play after it was dismissed.
The boys missed him, and their curiosity was excited when he would give no other reason for not coming to school earlier, or staying after school, than that he was "wanted at home."
"I'll tell you," said Tom Barton, "I'll find him out, boys—see if I don't!"