Chapter IV: Robert's Deceit

"WHERE is Robert?" inquired his uncle a few days later, coming in from the street in an excited manner.

"Up in his room, studying his lesson. He has idled away all the morning, and I forbade him to leave his room till he could repeat every word of it."

Mrs. Woodward sighed as she said this; and her husband glancing anxiously at her, noticed that she looked pale and careworn.

"I will go up, and talk to the boy," he said angrily. "There must and shall be an end to this."

Robert's door was locked from the inside.

"Unlock this, and be quick about it," said his uncle.

There was no answer.

Again he called, "Robert, are you there? Unlock your door, I say."

Still, no movement from inside.

Putting his eye to the key-hole, Mr. Woodward saw at once that the key had been taken out. After trying half a dozen keys from other doors in the same hall, he found one which would turn the bolt, and by this time, Ellen was with him.

They entered together. But Robert was not there. The room was empty, and the window wide open. It was a back room and opened directly upon a shed.

By jumping six or eight feet, Robert could reach the shed; and from this, let himself to the ground by a tree whose branches rested on the roof.

"Call your mother," was all that Woodward said, after standing at the window a short time.

She entered with a look of surprise and asked instantly:

"Where is he?"

"He has jumped from the window to the shed, and escaped to the street by the back yard. Following and pelting an old drunken soldier, I saw a boy greatly resembling him, but I doubted the evidence of my own eyes. I hurried home hoping, but scarcely daring to expect that I was mistaken."

"Oh, mamma! Look at his slate," exclaimed Ellen, "and see, he has been eating in bed."

In one corner of the slate were a few figures, and directly underneath, Mrs. Woodward had worked out an example to show him the principle. The rest of the slate on both sides was filled up with the most grotesque figures. Men with enormous noses, women with crooked noses, men with pipes in their mouths, men with huge heads and spindle legs, fat men and lean men, etc., etc.

Ellen laughed heartily as she showed the figures to her mother. But the lady was too much worried even to smile.

"What shall we do?" she asked in a despairing tone.

Mr. Woodward looked at his watch, then took a raisin stem between his fingers, and shook his head.

"He gets lots of raisins, mamma," suggested Ellen. "I see him chewing them in church, and he sometimes gives me some."

"Where does he get them?" inquired her father glancing at his wife.

"I do not know. Perhaps he spends his pocket money that way."

"He eats enough in all conscience at the table," said the gentleman pointing at the same time to crumbs of rich cake.

"What is it best to do?" Mrs. Woodward asked again.

"Leave every thing here exactly as we found it, lock the door and go down to dinner. If this is thoughtlessness or fun, we shall know it by his actions. If it is an attempt to deceive, he will deny that he has been out. But I tell you, Josephine, as I have told you before, that idleness, if not cured now, will be the ruin of that boy."

Mr. Woodward returned the key to the door from which he had taken it, went down-stairs and seated himself, with his newspaper in his accustomed place by the window.

Mrs. Woodward went sadly to her store closet, found the door to the inner cupboard unlocked and crumbs of cake scattered about.

On opening the box of raisins, she started with surprise. It was empty.

"Oh Robert! Oh my brother!" she cried with a burst of tears.

Locking both the inner and outer door, and putting the keys in her pocket, she returned to her own chamber, where on her knees before God she implored wisdom to guide aright the child left in her charge.

Half an hour later, the dinner bell rang and to the astonishment of all but Mr. Woodward, down came Robert, rushing over the stairs in his usual noisy manner.

The gentleman sitting near the window had seen the boy skulk slyly close to the house into the back gate, from whence he could easily gain his room without being seen if the halls happened to be empty.

"I smell something good," exclaimed the boy snuffing the air. "I do like good dinners."

"Have you learned your lessons?" gravely inquired his aunt, fixing her sorrowful eyes on his face.

"I've got most all, but the sums are awful hard. I can't make them out."

Ellen thought of the funny men's noses on the slate and began to laugh, but was checked by a glance of reproof from her father.

"Have you really tried to make them out, Robert?" asked his uncle, holding his carvers suspended while he waited for an answer.

"Yes, uncle, 'deed I have," answered the boy coloring furiously.

"Did you not take your mind from your book, or leave your room during study-hours?"

The boy glanced quickly from the questioner to his aunt, but seeing nothing to excite his suspicion answered in a cheerful voice:

"Oh no, indeed, uncle! Aunt Josephine told me not to leave the room, and I didn't. I studied real hard, 'deed I did."

Ellen quickly covered her mouth with her hand to repress a scream.

But Robert was so intent in watching the juicy slice of beef that his uncle was placing on his plate that he did not notice her.

His aunt grew deadly pale, and was obliged to press her hands on her heart.

"You don't look very hungry," said his uncle hesitating about the second slice which he held between the knife and fork. "I suspect you've had lunch since breakfast."

"Oh, no; uncle! I never eat between meals; that is," as he caught a glance of astonishment from his cousin, "not very often. I haven't eaten any thing to-day, 'deed I haven't. I'm right hungry."

"Robert," said the gentleman, dropping his carvers, and looking sternly at the smiling face before him, "you may leave your seat, and go to the library. I cannot sit at the table with a boy so deceitful as you are."

"What have I done?" Robert asked, rising with great reluctance from his seat. "I meant to be real good so as to please aunt Josephine. Can't I take my dinner in there?"

"Go," ordered his uncle and without another word. "Don't you see, you wicked boy, that you are killing your aunt?"

The lady looked indeed as though she was on the point of fainting. But as Robert walked slowly from the room, she with difficulty raised a glass of water to her lips, which revived her.