e?" she asked,
watching Nat's attentive face.

"You mean to be good?" he said, after hesitating a minute.

"Yes; to be good, and to love to be good. It is hard work sometimes, I
know very well; but we all help one another, and so we get on. This is
one of the ways in which I try to help my boys," and she took down a
thick book, which seemed half-full of writing, and opened at a page on
which there was one word at the top.

"Why, that's my name!" cried Nat, looking both surprised and interested.

"Yes; I have a page for each boy. I keep a little account of how he gets
on through the week, and Sunday night I show him the record. If it is
bad I am sorry and disappointed, if it is good I am glad and proud; but,
whichever it is, the boys know I want to help them, and they try to do
their best for love of me and Father Bhaer."

"I should think they would," said Nat, catching a glimpse of Tommy's
name opposite his own, and wondering what was written under it.

Mrs. Bhaer saw his eye on the words, and shook her head, saying, as she
turned a leaf,

"No, I don't show my records to any but the one to whom each belongs. I
call this my conscience book; and only you and I will ever know what is
to be written on the page below your name. Whether you will be pleased
or ashamed to read it next Sunday depends on yourself. I think it will
be a good report; at any rate, I shall try to make things easy for you
in this new place, and shall be quite contented if you keep our few
rules, live happily with the boys, and learn something."

"I'll try ma'am;" and Nat's thin face flushed up with the earnestness
of his desire to make Mrs. Bhaer "glad and proud," not "sorry and
disappointed." "It must be a great deal of trouble to write about so
many," he added, as she shut her book with an encouraging pat on the
shoulder.

"Not to me, for I really don't know which I like best, writing or boys,"
she said, laughing to see Nat stare with astonishment at the last item.
"Yes, I know many people think boys are a nuisance, but that is because
they don't understand them. I do; and I never saw the boy yet whom I
could not get on capitally with after I had once found the soft spot in
his heart. Bless me, I couldn't get on at all without my flock of dear,
noisy, naughty, harum-scarum little lads, could I, my Teddy?" and Mrs.
Bhaer hugged the young rogue, just in time to save the big inkstand from
going into his pocket.

Nat, who had never heard anyt