About ten o'clock he returned home, got a book and read until dinner-time.
Somehow he did not have much of an appetite, and after dinner he took his fishing tackle and went off to the creek.
When he returned at dusk, he had a string of perch.
"Where's my fish-knife, Jennie?" he asked, as he laid the fish on the bench in the wash-house.
"Jennie will clean the fish, Roswell," called out his mother. "Catching fish is play; cleaning them is work."
"Pshaw!" said Roswell, impatiently.
He was rather proud of his ability to prepare fish for the pan.
At supper Mr. Hofford asked him how he was enjoying himself, and Roswell answered that he was doing very well. After supper, when the table was cleared, he got out a lot of traps and set to work on an electrical machine he was trying to make, but his father promptly checked him.
"That won't do, Roswell. Work is strictly forbidden."
"But this is for myself."