Rollo knew that when his father told him to go away by himself, he meant for him to go into this back garret. So he turned round and walked out of the room. As he passed up the back stairs, the kitten came frisking around him, but he had no heart to play with her, and walked on. He then turned and went up the narrow, steep stairs that led to the garret; they were rather more like a ladder than like stairs. Rollo ascended them, and then sat down in the little rocking-chair. The rain was beating against the windows, and pattering on the roof which was just over his head.
It is sometimes but a little thing which turns the whole current of the thoughts and feelings. In Rollo's case, at this time, it was but a drop of water. For after having sat some time in his chair, his heart remaining pretty nearly the same, a drop of water, which, somehow or other, contrived to get through some crevice in the boards and shingles over his head, fell exactly into the back of his neck. The first feeling it occasioned was an additional emotion of impatience and fretfulness. But he next began to think how unreasonable and wicked it was to make all that difficulty, just because his father was preventing his going out to stay all day in the rain, when a single drop falling upon him vexed and irritated him.
He also looked out of the window towards the garden, and the dry ground, and all the trees and garden vegetables seemed to be drinking in the rain with delight. That made him think of the vast amount of good the rain was doing, and he saw his own selfishness in a striking point of view. In a word Rollo was now beginning to be really penitent. The tears came into his eyes; but they were tears of real sorrow for sin, not of vexation and anger.
He took up his little Bible, to read one of the passages, as his father had advised him. He happened to open at a mark which his father had put in at the parable of the prodigal son. The first verse which his eye fell upon, was the verse, "I will arise and go to my father." Rollo thought that that was exactly the thing for him to do-to go and confess his fault to his father.
So he laid down his little Bible, wiped the tears from his eyes, and went down stairs. He met his father in the entry. He went up to him, and took his hand, and said,
"Father, I am really very sorry I have been so naughty; I will try to be a good boy now."
His father stooped down and kissed him. "I am very glad to hear it, Rollo," said he. "Now you may go and find Lucy. I believe she is up in your mother's chamber."
Rollo went off quite happy in pursuit of Lucy. He found her sitting on a cricket in his mother's room, looking over a little picture-book. Rollo ran laughing up to her, and said,
"What have you got, Lucy?"
"One of your little picture-books. Will you lend it to me to carry home?"
Rollo said he would, and then they began to talk about what they should do. It rained very fast, and they could not go out of doors; and, after proposing several things, which, however, neither of them seemed to like, they turned to Rollo's mother, and asked her what they had better do.
"I always find," said his mother, "that when I am disappointed of any pleasure, it is best not to try to find any other pleasure in its place, but to turn to duty."
The children did not understand this very well, and they were silent.
"What I mean," she continued, "is this: When we have just been disappointed of any pleasure which we had set our hearts upon, it is very difficult to find any thing else that we can have in its place, that will look as pleasant as the one we had lost. You see that you are not satisfied with any thing you propose to one another. Now, I find that the best way, in such cases, is to give up pleasure altogether, and turn to some duty; and after performing the duty a short time, peace and satisfaction return to the mind again, and we get over the effects of the disappointment in the quickest and pleasantest way."
Rollo and Lucy looked at one another rather soberly. They did not seem to know what to say.
"I presume, however, you will not do this," continued his mother.
"Why?" said Rollo.
"Because," said his mother, "it requires a good deal of resolution, at first, to turn to duty when you have just been setting your heart on pleasure."
"O, we have got resolution enough," said Rollo.
"What duty do you think we had better do?" asked Lucy.
"If I were you," replied Rollo's mother, "I should first of all sit down and have a good reading lesson."
Rollo and Lucy hesitated a little, but they concluded to take their mother's advice at last, and went to Rollo's little library, and chose a book, and then went down to the back entry, and sat down there, on a long cricket, and began to read.
At first, it was rather hard to do it, for it did not look very pleasant to either of them to sit down and read, just at the time when they expected to be gathering blueberries on the mountain. Rollo said, when they were opening the hook and finding the place, that, if they had gone, they should, by that time, have just about arrived at the foot of the mountain.
"Yes," said Lucy, "but we must not think of that now. Besides, just see how it rains. It would be a fine time now to go up a mountain, wouldn't it?"
Rollo looked out of the open door, and saw the rain pouring down into the yard, and felt again ashamed to recollect how he had insisted that it was not going to rain.
Lucy said it was beautiful to see it pouring down so fast. "Look," said she; "how it streams down from the spout at the corner of the barn!"
"Yes," said Rollo, "and see that little pond out by the garden gate. How it is all full of little bubbles! It will be a beautiful pond for me to sail boats in, when the rain is over. I can make paper-boats and pea boats!"
"Pea boats?" said Lucy; "what are pea-boats?"
"O! they are beautiful little boats," said he. "Jonas showed me how to make them. We take a pea-pod, a good large full pea-pod, and shave off the top from one end to the other, and then take out the peas, and it makes a beautiful little boat. I wish we had some; I could show you."
"Let us make some when we have done reading, and sail them. Only that pond will all go away when the rain is over."
"O no," said Rollo, "I will put some ground all around it, and then the water cannot run away."
"Yes, but it will soak down into the ground."
"Will it?" said Rollo. "Well, we can sail our boats on it a little while before it is gone."
"But it is so wet," said Lucy, "we cannot go out to get any pea-pods."
"I did not think of that," said Rollo. "Perhaps Jonas could get some for us, with an umbrella."
"I could go with an umbrella," said Lucy, "just as well as not."
The children saw an umbrella behind the door, and they thought they would go both together, and they actually laid down their book, spread the umbrella, and went to the door. It then occurred to them that it would not be quite right to go out, without leave; so Rollo went to ask his mother.
His mother said it was not suitable for young ladies to go out in the rain, as their shoes, and their dress generally, were thin, and could not bear to be exposed to wet; but she said that Rollo himself might take off his shoes and stockings, and go out alone, when the rain held up.