or much, that
boy. His chief delight was to eat and sleep; and after that--he liked
best to make mischief.

It was a Sunday morning and the boy's parents were getting ready to go
to church. The boy sat on the edge of the table, in his shirt sleeves,
and thought how lucky it was that both father and mother were going
away, and the coast would be clear for a couple of hours. "Good! Now I
can take down pop's gun and fire off a shot, without anybody's meddling
interference," he said to himself.

But it was almost as if father should have guessed the boy's thoughts,
for just as he was on the threshold--ready to start--he stopped short,
and turned toward the boy. "Since you won't come to church with mother
and me," he said, "the least you can do, is to read the service at home.
Will you promise to do so?" "Yes," said the boy, "that I can do easy
enough." And he thought, of course, that he wouldn't read any more than
he felt like reading.

The boy thought that never had he seen his mother so persistent. In a
second she was over by the shelf near the fireplace, and took down
Luther's Commentary and laid it on the table, in front of the
window--opened at the service for the day. She also opened the New
Testament, and placed it beside the Commentary. Finally, she drew up the
big arm-chair, which was bought at the parish auction the year before,
and which, as a rule, no one but father was permitted to occupy.

The boy sat thinking that his mother was giving herself altogether too
much trouble with this spread; for he had no intention of reading more
than a page or so. But now, for the second time, it was almost as if his
father were able to see right through him. He walked up to the boy, and
said in a severe tone: "Now, remember, that you are to read carefully!
For when we come back, I shall question you thoroughly; and if you have
skipped a single page, it will not go well with you."

"The service is fourteen and a half pages long," said his mother, just
as if she wanted to heap up the measure of his misfortune. "You'll have
to sit down and begin the reading at once, if you expect to get through
with it."

With that they departed. And as the boy stood in the doorway watching
them, he thought that he had been caught in a trap. "There they go
congratulating themselves, I suppose, in the belief that they've hit
upon something so good that I'll be forced to sit and hang over the
sermon the whole time that they are away," thoug