leb walked along silent as before.

"_Moo! moo!_" said Dwight, running round to Caleb's side of the
wheelbarrow, and _moo-ing_ close into his ear.

Caleb let go of the wheelbarrow, turned around, burst into tears, and
walked slowly and sorrowfully away towards the house.

"There, now," said David, "you have made him cry. What do you want to
trouble him so for?"

Dwight looked after Caleb, and seeing that he was going to the house, he
was afraid that he would tell his grandmother. So he ran after him, and
began to call to him to stop; but, before he had gone many steps, he saw
his grandmother standing at the door of the house, and calling to them
all to come.

Caleb had nearly stopped crying when he came up to his grandmother. She
did not say any thing to him about the cause of his trouble, but asked
him if he was willing to go down cellar with Mary Anna, and help her
choose a plateful of apples for dinner. His eye brightened at this
proposal, and Mary Anna, who was sitting at the window, reading, rose,
laid down her book, took hold of his hand with a smile, and led him
away.

Madam Rachel then went to her seat in her great arm-chair, and David and
Dwight came and stood by her side.

"I am sorry, Dwight, that you wanted to trouble Caleb."

"But, mother," said Dwight, "I only _moo-ed_ at him a little."

"And what did you do it for?"

"O, only for fun, mother."

"Did you suppose it gave him pain?"

"Why,--I don't know."

"Did you suppose it gave him pleasure?"

"Why, no," said Dwight, looking down.

"And did not you know that it gave him pain? Now, tell me, honestly."

"Why, yes, mother, I knew it plagued him a little; but then I only did
it for fun."

"I know it," said Madam Rachel; "and that is the very thing that makes
me so sorry for it."

"Why, mother?" said Dwight in a tone of surprise.

"Because if you had given Caleb four times as much pain for any other
reason, I should not have thought half so much of it, as to have you
trouble him for _fun_. If it had been to do him any good, or to do any
body else any good, or from mistake, or mere thoughtlessness, I should
not have thought so much of it; but to do it for _fun_!"

Here Madam Rachel stopped, as if she did not know what to say.

"I rather think, mother, it was only _thoughtlessness_," said David, by
way of excusing Dwight.

"No; because he knew that it gave Caleb pain, and it was, in fact, for
the very purpose of giving him pain, that