He was usually active and interested, but sometimes he would have fits of depression.

Then the mother would find the boy of three or four crying on the sofa.
"What's the matter ?" she asked, and got no answer.
"What's the matter ?" she insisted, getting cross.
"I don't know," sobbed the child.
So she tried to reason him out of it, or to amuse him, but without effect.

It made her feel beside herself.

Then the father, always impatient, would jump from his chair and shout: "If he doesn't stop, I'll smack him till he does." "You'll do nothing of the sort," said the mother coldly.

And then she carried the child into the yard, plumped him into his little chair, and said: "Now cry there, Misery!" And then a butterfly on the rhubarb-leaves perhaps caught his eye, or at last he cried himself to sleep.