She was nervous and uneasy as the day approached.

Mr.Hardhand always abused her when she told him she could not pay him, and she dreaded his coming.
It was the first of July on which Bobby caught those pouts, caught the horse, and on which Tom Spicer had "caught a Tartar." Bobby hastened home, as we said at the conclusion of the last chapter.
He was as happy as a lord.

He had fish enough in his basket for dinner, and for breakfast the next morning, and money enough in his pocket to make his mother as happy as a queen, if queens are always happy.
The widow Bright, though she had worried and fretted night and day about the money which was to be paid to Mr.Hardhand on the first of July, had not told her son any thing about it.

It would only make him unhappy, she reasoned, and it was needless to make the dear boy miserable for nothing; so Bobby ran home all unconscious of the pleasure which was in store for him.
When he reached the front door, as he stopped to scrape his feet on the sharp stone there, as all considerate boys who love their mothers do, before they go into the house, he heard the angry tones of Mr.
Hardhand.

He was scolding and abusing his mother because she could not pay him the twenty-five dollars.
Bobby's blood boiled with indignation, and his first impulse was to serve him as he had served Tom Spicer, only a few moments before; but Bobby, as we have before intimated, was a peaceful boy, and not disposed to quarrel with any person; so he contented himself with muttering a few hard words.
"The wretch! What business has he to talk to my mother in that style ?" said he to himself.