As soon as the father realized what the boy was doing, he was a transformed man. The knowledge that he had a helper seemed to clear the atmosphere. Before this the boy had always kept out of the father's way. Now he forsook the mother! It was "Papa and me" from that time in his talk. This new attitude made it all the easier for the wife, for it was a relief from what had been her greatest trouble--having to stand between the two.
The father's pride and confidence in his son kept on growing. In many ways he was just a good-natured big giant, but he turned like a bear on anything that annoyed him.
I remember the first day the boy stayed out of school to work, how it seemed to me a deciding day in his life. I rarely like to see a child stay out of school, but that day I thought the industrial training much more important than anything I could teach the boy in those hours of school. He came regularly after the rush of work was over.
A SCHOOL IN MONTANA: MRS. HOAGLAND'S FIRST LETTER TO THE AUTHOR
Last September I heard your lecture on credit being given in school for home work. I have tried it lately after working the children up to grade. I started by getting acquainted with the homes, finding out what the children did and what they could do further. I made inquiries as to whether the children, in their play, left things around for the mother to pick up and so on. The spirit the work is done in counts, too, in credit given. The work must be done pleasantly and cheerfully; the mother must be asked for work; she is not to be hunting the child up to get him to do the work.
One little girl of eleven made bread from beginning to end, never having tried it entirely before. She has an overworked mother. In another home I found the two older children took charge of a teething baby while the mother, an ex-teacher and rather delicate, did the housework. The little girl, six years old, could do dishes and otherwise help the mother. In another home the boy has grown to be the pride of his father's heart by forcing the father back into the chair, when he was weary, and doing the chores himself.
One boy, his father told me two weeks ago, was growing as dependable as his brother five years older, and helped bring the cows, herd cattle from one field to another before and after school and on non-school days. There was much other work, light in itself, but wonderfully helpful to his father, that was taken charge of cheerfully.