"Look at his shoulders.

His arms are hard, too.

Of course he can't show his muscle, but I tell you he can box and swing dumb-bells." If the father had known it, in the direction of athletics lay the road to the son's heart, but the members of the First Church were not sufficiently advanced to approve of a muscular minister, and so Mr.
Excell kept silent on such subjects, and swung his dumb-bells in private.

As a matter of fact, he had been a good hunter in his youth in Michigan, and might have won his son's love by tales of the wood, but he did not.
For the most part, Harold ignored his father's occasional moments of tenderness, and spent the larger part of his time with his sister or at the Burns' farm.
Mr.and Mrs.Burns saw all that was manly and good in the boy, and they stoutly defended him on all occasions.
"The boy is put upon," Mrs.Burns always argued.

"A quieter, more peaceabler boy I never knew, except my own Jack.