"Now, boys," went on the mother, "you want to relieve Uncle James's
disagreeable feelings all you can, and don't you see that you increase
them when you do things to annoy him? His snappish feelings are just
like a sore that is smarting and aching all the time, and when you get
in their way it hurts as if you rubbed the sore. Keep out of his way
when you can, and when you can't and he snaps at you, say: 'I beg your
pardon, sir,' like gentlemen, and stop doing what annoys him; or get
out of his way as soon as you can."

Uncle James never became less snappish. But the upright, manly courtesy
of those boys toward him was like fresh air on a mountain, especially
because it had become a habit and was all as a matter of course. The
father and mother realized that Uncle James had, unconsciously, made
men of their boys as nothing else in the world could have done, and had
trained them so that they would grow up tolerant and courteous toward
all human peculiarities.

Many times a gracious courtesy toward the "trying member" will discover
good and helpful qualities that we had not guessed before. Sometimes
after a little honest effort we find that it is ourselves who have been
the trying members, and that the other one has been the member tried.
Often it is from two members of the family that the trying element
comes. Two sisters may clash, and they will generally clash because
they are unlike. Suppose one sister moves and lives in big swings, and
the other in minute details. Of course when these extreme tendencies
are accented in each the selfish temptation is for the larger mind to
lapse into carelessness of details, and for the smaller mind to shrink
into pettiness, and as this process continues the sisters get more and
more intolerant of each other, and farther and farther apart. But if
the sister who moves in the big swings will learn from the other to be
careful in details, and if the smaller mind will allow itself to be
enlarged by learning from the habitually broader view of the other,
each will grow in proportion, and two women who began life as enemies
in temperament can end it as happy friends.

There are similar cases of brothers who clash, but they are not so
evident, for when men do not agree they leave one another alone. Women
do not seem to be able to do that. It is good to leave one another
alone when there is the clashing tendency, but it is better to conquer
the clashing and learn to agree.

So long as t