" The lawyer was
kind-hearted in his own fashion, and on this hint Miss Kitty built up
hopes, which unhappily were met by no responsive ambition in John Broom.
As to his fitness to be an errand boy, he could not carry a message from
the kitchen to the cowhouse without stopping by the way to play with the
yard-dog, and a hedgehog in the path would probably have led him astray,
if Thomasina had had a fit and he had been despatched for the doctor.
During school hours he spent most of his time under the fool's cap when
he was not playing truant. With his schoolmates he was good friends. If
he was seldom out of mischief, he was seldom out of temper. He could
beat any boy at a foot race (without shoes); he knew the notes and nests
of every bird that sang, and whatever an old pocket-knife is capable of,
that John Broom could and would do with it for his fellows.
Miss Betty had herself tried to teach him to read, and she continued to
be responsible for his religious instruction. She had hoped to stir up
his industry by showing him the Bible, and promising that when he could
read it he should have it for his "very own." But he either could not or
would not apply himself, so the prize lay unearned in Thomasina's trunk.
But he would listen for any length of time to Scripture stories, if
they were read or told him, especially to the history of Elisha, and the
adventures of the judges.
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