While Clinton is on his way home from school, after the discovery of his offence, let us look in a moment upon his parents.
“After six o’clock, and Clinton has not made his appearance yet,” said Mrs. Davenport, who had the smoking tea and toasted bread upon the table, in readiness for the evening meal. “Really, husband, I begin to feel uneasy about Clinton. He is away from home a great deal more than he used to be, and when he is here, he seems like a different boy from what he was a year or two ago. You say you don’t notice anything unusual about him, but that only shows that a mother’s eye is more quick to read the heart than a man’s. I see a change in his conduct. He is more reserved than he used to be; is less affectionate in his manners, takes less interest in his work and books, and often seems absent-minded, as though he was thinking of something that he meant to conceal from us. I don’t like that Jerry Preston, and I’m afraid he is doing Clinton no good.”
“You are only borrowing trouble when there is no need of it,” replied Mr. Davenport. “I don’t see but that Clinton behaves as well now as he ever did. At any rate, I’ve no fault to find with his conduct, and nobody else has yet made any complaint against him. You must not expect that he will always be precisely the same little boy he used to be. As he grows older, he will naturally change, like all the rest of us.”
Before Mrs. Davenport could reply, Clinton entered the room, and silently took his seat with the family at the supper-table. The conversation that had just passed, naturally led both his parents to observe him more closely than usual. Mr. Davenport thought he looked unusually sober. But the mother, with her penetrating eye, saw more than this; she saw traces of weeping, and a peculiar expression of trouble, on the face of Clinton. She noticed, also, that she could not catch his eye, which was restless and uneasy. He took no part in the conversation at the table, and ate but little. After tea, he took the lantern, and brought in from the barn the usual supply of wood and kindling stuff for the morrow, which was a part of his regular work. This duty over, he seated himself on a cricket by the fire-side, and commenced whittling a piece of pine which he had brought in. Annie had been put to bed, and his father and mother were seated at the light-stand, which was drawn up in front of the blazing wood-fire. The same troubled look which Mrs. Davenport had noticed at the tea-table, was still very plainly visible on Clinton’s face. Indeed, he had seated himself with the determination not to rise until he had made his confession to both his parents; and he was thinking how he should introduce the unpleasant topic, when his father broke the silence by asking:—
“Clinton, what are you making?”
“I am only whittling,” he replied.
“I see you are whittling,” remarked Mr. Davenport; “I inquired what you was making.”
“I aint making anything,” replied Clinton.
“That’s a bad sign, Clinty,” continued his father. “I know whittling is a Yankee accomplishment, but he is a poor Yankee, who whittles away his stick to nothing. Did you never hear of the fellow who lost his sweet-heart by doing that very thing?”