In like manner the boy cannot prevent his most
innocent pleasures from arresting him.
He will not endure (albeit he does not confess so much) to be told to do
anything, at least in that citadel of his freedom, his home. His elders
probably give him as few orders as possible. He will almost ingeniously
evade any that are inevitably or thoughtlessly inflicted upon him, but if
he does but succeed in only postponing his obedience, he has, visibly,
done something for his own relief. It is less convenient that he should
hold mere questions, addressed to him in all good faith, as in some sort
an attempt upon his liberty.
Questions about himself one might understand to be an outrage. But it is
against impersonal and indifferent questions also that the boy sets his
face like a rock. He has no ambition to give information on any point.
Older people may not dislike the opportunity, and there are even those
who bring to pass questions of a trivial kind for the pleasure of
answering them with animation. This, the boy perhaps thinks, is "fuss,"
and, if he has any passions, he has a passionate dislike of fuss.
When a younger child tears the boy's scrapbook (which is conjectured,
though not known, to be the dearest thing he has) he betrays no emotion;
that was to be expected. But when the stolen pages are rescued and put
by for him, he abstains from taking an interest in the retrieval; he will
do nothing to restore them.
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