“You will see the good of it some of these days, Uncle Reuben,” laughed Ishmael.

“You will wear yourself out before that day comes, my boy, if you are not careful,” answered Reuben.

“I always said the fetched books would be his ruin, and now I know it,” put in Hannah.

Ishmael laughed good-humoredly; but Reuben sighed.

“Ishmael, my lad,” he said, “if you must read, do, pray, read in the forenoon, instead of working in the garden.”

“But what will become of the garden?” inquired Ishmael, with gravity.

“Oh, I can put one of the nigger boys into it.”

“And have to pay for his time and not have the work half done at last.”

“Well, I had rather it be so, than you should slave yourself to death.”

“Oh, but I do not slave myself to death!  I like to work in the garden, and I am never happier than when I am engaged there; the garden is beautiful, and the care of it is a great pleasure as well as a great benefit to me; it gives me all the outdoor exercise and recreation that I require to enable me to sit at my writing or reading all the rest of the day.”

“Ah, Ishmael, my lad, who would think work was recreation except you?  But it is your goodness of heart that turns every duty into a delight,” said Reuben Gray; and he was not very far from the truth.

“It is his obstinacy as keeps him everlasting a-working himself to death!  Reuben Gray, Ishmael Worth is one of the obstinatest boys that ever you set your eyes on!  He has been obstinate ever since he was a baby,” said Hannah angrily.  And her mind reverted to that old time when the infant Ishmael would live in defiance of everybody.

“I do believe as Ishmael would be as firm as a rock in a good cause; but I don’t believe that he could be obstinate in a bad one,” said Reuben decidedly.

“Yes, he could! else why does he persist in staying home this evening when we want him to go with us?” complained Hannah.

Now, strength of will is not necessarily self-will.  Firmness of purpose is not always implacability.  The strong need not be violent in order to prove their strength.  And Ishmael, firmly resolved as he was to devote every hour of his leisure to study, knew very well when to make an exception to his rule, and sacrifice his inclinations to his duty.  So he answered: 

“Aunt Hannah, if you really desire me to go with you, I will do so of course.”

“I want you to go because I think you stick too close to your books, you stubborn fellow; and because I know you haven’t been out anywhere for the last two months; and because I believe it would do you good to go,” said Mrs. Gray.

“All right, Aunt Hannah.  I will run upstairs and dress,” laughed Ishmael, leaving the tea-table.

“And be sure you put on your gold watch and chain,” called out Hannah.

Hannah also arose and went to her room to change her plain brown calico gown for a fine black silk dress and mantle that had been Reuben Gray’s nuptial present to her, and a straw bonnet trimmed with blue.