The fire which she found ready made in the morning, the full pail of
fresh water, the box: filled with wood, were all so many drops of honey
to the tired mother's heart. The awkward pat of his father's pillow,
which Tip now and then gave as he lingered to ask how he was, seemed so
new and delightful to that neglected father's heart, that he lay on his
hard bed and thought of it much all day.
Tip got on better at home than anywhere else; he had not so many
temptations. He had been such a lawless, reckless boy, that they had all
learned to leave him very much to himself, and, as not a great deal of
his time was spent there, his trials at home were not many. As for Kitty,
she did not cease to wonder what had happened to Tip; she perhaps felt
the difference more than any one else, for it had been the delight of his
life to tease her.
Now, from the time that he gathered his books, with the first sound of
the school-bell, and hurried up the hill, until he returned at night,
ready to split wood, hoe in the garden, or do any of the dozen things
that he had never been known to do before, he was a never-failing subject
of thought and wonderment to her.
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