If his mother asked him to do anything, he always replied, "I will in a minute." He said this so often that I wonder he was not called "in a minute" by everybody. It would have been a very appropriate name.

Howard had the charge of the hens, at least that was the way they put it, but I think that Mrs. Grinnell was the one upon whom the burden rested. Every morning after breakfast she found it necessary to ask,

"Howard, have you fed the hens?"

"Not yet, but I am going to."

"Well, go right away, or you will forget it."

"No, I will not forget, I am going in a minute; I just want to look at the weather report."

Half an hour later Howard appears from the direction of the east meadow with his hands full of meadow lilies which he presents to his mother, saying:

"The very first! Put them in the antique vase, please. And set it under the mantle, will you, mamma?"

"Thank you, dear, they are beautiful! I will arrange them at once." Then as she turned away, "The hens?"

"O, I forgot! I'll go now."

"Seems to me," said Mr. Grinnell one morning, "that you have carried that on your shoulders about long enough. Howard should attend to his business without prompting. It did very well at first, but the time has come when he must be held responsible for the prompt discharge of the duty, else take away the privilege. Howard!"

"Sir?" responded the boy, turning back on his way to the barn.

"After this you are not to be reminded of your work, and if the hens are not cared for before breakfast, I will do it myself, and you will not have any benefit from the eggs, either in money or as food; it will be some little extra trouble for your mother, but you will be provided with food prepared without eggs unless you are faithful to your trust."

"Yes, sir." And Howard went on his way. I do not think he made any resolutions; he thought it would be easy enough to attend to the duty as required, and gave himself up to the examination of a weed which had sprung up in the yard and which was a new one to him. The next morning he remembered the hens, but the second morning though remembering he thought of something he wished to hunt up in the cyclopÆdia, and stopped in the library until the breakfast bell rang.

For breakfast there was ham and eggs, and corn muffins. Howard was a little surprised when his father passed him a plate with only a potato on it. He was about to remonstrate, when he caught the significant look on his mother's face, and remembered the compact. He wisely made the best of it and decided that he would try a bowl of bread and milk.

After breakfast Mr. Grinnell fed the hens, and at night he brought in the eggs, saying to his wife:

"I would like some boiled eggs for supper; as Bridget is away, we can get along very well with bread and butter and eggs. Didn't I see you making a sponge cake this morning?"

"Yes." Then they both laughed, but Mr. Grinnell sobered immediately and said:

"It is rather hard on the boy when he is so fond of eggs, but it is quite time he had a lesson. His dilatory habits will be a hindrance to his success as long as he lives unless he is cured."

Now, privately, I do not believe that Mr. or Mrs. Grinnell enjoyed their supper of boiled eggs and sponge cake. I know the mother would much rather have eaten dry bread and given the boy her supper, but she and her husband chatted over the meal as if everything were quite as usual. Howard ate his bread and butter, missing the canned fruit which Mrs. Grinnell remarked she thought they could do without as they had the extra indulgence of boiled eggs. Now I do not suppose any of you boys are surprised to hear that Howard, after asking to be excused some time before his father and mother were through with their supper, banged the door slightly as he left the room.

However, the next morning the hens received attention at the proper time. And so far as that one duty was concerned he did not need another lesson, but he was not yet made over into the prompt boy which his father desired him to be. That woodbox! O, boys! Do you shrug your shoulders and say, "I don't blame him?" The woodbox is a dread to boys, I well know. Howard Grinnell did not particularly dislike the work of filling the box, but he was never quite ready to do it. He was always putting it off until he had finished reading the morning paper, or been the rounds of the garden and meadows to see if there were any new flowers out or any new birds' nests, and at length the school bell would ring and he would go off to school having forgotten that there was such a thing in the wide world as a woodbox. One morning Mrs. Grinnell said, "Howard, Bridget will need a box full of wood to-day; she has a large ironing."

"Yes, ma'am," said Howard dreamily from the depths of an arm-chair where he had established himself with a new orchid and a botany. Mrs. Grinnell was busy, and gave the matter no farther attention until two hours later Bridget announced that the wood was out.

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Grinnell, "that boy went off without filling the box, after all!" After a moment's thought she said: "Well, Bridget, Howard cannot expect his clothes to be ironed with cold irons. You may hang all his things upon the bars without ironing, and he will have to wear them so. Perhaps you and I can get wood enough for the rest."

Bridget thought it a good joke to play upon Master Howard, and her good nature returned in view of the sport she would have at the boy's expense.

You may imagine that Howard did not enjoy wearing his rough-dried garments, but he was forced to do so. And as he was a somewhat fastidious boy, it was quite a trial to go to school in that plight.

It was by such lessons as this that Mr. and Mrs. Grinnell sought to cure Howard of his fault; and one day when Mrs. Grinnell was looking over same mottoes, she discovered one handsomely illuminated which struck her as being just the one for her son's room. It was this:

"Diligent in business, serving the Lord!"