Then they stretch a rod across the streams and ponds and bring a plague
of frogs over the land, with swarms of flies and horrible insects."

"That was to show God's power to Pharaoh, and melt his hard heart to
obedience and reverence," explained Mrs. Boynton, who had known the
Bible from cover to cover in her youth and could still give chapter and
verse for hundreds of her favorite passages.

"It took an awful lot of melting, Pharaoh's heart!" exclaimed the boy.
"Pharaoh must have been worse than Deacon Baxter! I wonder if they ever
tried to make him good by being kind to him! I've read and read, but I
can't find they used anything on him but plagues and famines and boils
and pestilences and thunder and hail and fire!--Have I got a middle
name, Aunt Boynton, for I don't like Rod very much?"

"I never heard that you had a middle name; you must ask Ivory," said his
aunt abstractedly.

"Did my father name me Rod, or my mother?'

"I don't really know; perhaps it was your mother, but don't ask
questions, please."

"I forgot, Aunt Boynton! Yes, I think perhaps my mother named me.
Mothers 'most always name their babies, don't they? My mother wasn't
like you; she looked just like the picture of Pocahontas in my History.
She never knew about these Bible rods, I guess."

"When you go a little further you will find pleasanter things about
rods," said his aunt, knitting, knitting, intensely, as was her habit,
and talking as if her mind were a thousand miles away. "You know they
were just little branches of trees, and it was only God's power that
made them wonderful in any way."

"Oh! I thought they were like the singing-teacher's stick he keeps time
with."

"No; if you look at your Concordance you'll finds it gives you a
chapter in Numbers where there's something beautiful about rods. I have
forgotten the place; it has been many years since I looked at it.
Find it and read it aloud to me." The boy searched his Concordance and
readily found the reference in the seventeenth chapter of Numbers.

"Stand near me and read," said Mrs. Boynton. "I like to hear the Bible
read aloud!"

Rodman took his Bible and read, slowly and haltingly, but with clearness
and understanding:

1. AND THE LORD SPAKE UNTO MOSES, SAYING,

2. SPEAK UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, AND TAKE OF EVERY ONE OF THEM
A ROD ACCORDING TO THE HOUSE OF THEIR FATHERS, OF ALL THEIR PRINCES
ACCORDING TO THE HOUSE OF THEIR FATHERS TWELVE RODS: WRITE THOU EVERY
MA