“It took an awful lot of melting, Pharaoh's heart!” exclaimed the boy. “Pharaoh must have been worse than Deacon Baxter! I wonder if they ever tried to make him good by being kind to him! I've read and read, but I can't find they used anything on him but plagues and famines and boils and pestilences and thunder and hail and fire!--Have I got a middle name, Aunt Boynton, for I don't like Rod very much?” “I never heard that you had a middle name; you must ask Ivory,” said his aunt abstractedly. “Did my father name me Rod, or my mother?' “I don't really know; perhaps it was your mother, but don't ask questions, please.” “I forgot, Aunt Boynton! Yes, I think perhaps my mother named me. Mothers 'most always name their babies, don't they? My mother wasn't like you; she looked just like the picture of Pocahontas in my History. She never knew about these Bible rods, I guess.” “When you go a little further you will find pleasanter things about rods,” said his aunt, knitting, knitting, intensely, as was her habit, and talking as if her mind were a thousand miles away. “You know they were just little branches of trees, and it was only God's power that made them wonderful in any way.” “Oh! I thought they were like the singing-teacher's stick he keeps time with.” “No; if you look at your Concordance you'll finds it gives you a chapter in Numbers where there's something beautiful about rods. I have forgotten the place; it has been many years since I looked at it. Find it and read it aloud to me.” The boy searched his Concordance and readily found the reference in the seventeenth chapter of Numbers. “Stand near me and read,” said Mrs. Boynton. “I like to hear the Bible read aloud!” Rodman took his Bible and read, slowly and haltingly, but with clearness and understanding: 1. AND THE LORD SPAKE UNTO MOSES, SAYING, 2. SPEAK UNTO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL, AND TAKE OF EVERY ONE OF THEM A ROD ACCORDING TO THE HOUSE OF THEIR FATHERS, OF ALL THEIR PRINCES ACCORDING TO THE HOUSE OF THEIR FATHERS TWELVE RODS: WRITE THOU EVERY MAN'S NAME UPON HIS ROD. Through the boy's mind there darted the flash of a thought, a sad thought. He himself was a Rod on whom no man's name seemed to be written, orphan that he was, with no knowledge of his parents! Suddenly he hesitated, for he had caught sight of the name of Aaron in the verse that he was about to read, and did not wish to pronounce it in his aunt's hearing. “This chapter is most too hard for me to read out loud, Aunt Boynton,” he stammered. “Can I study it by myself and read it to Ivory first?” “Go on, go on, you read very sweetly; I can not remember what comes and I wish to hear it.” The boy continued, but without raising his eyes from the Bible. 3. AND THOU SHALT WRITE AARON'S NAME UPON THE ROD OF LEVI: FOR ONE ROD SHALL BE FOR THE HEAD OF THE HOUSE OF THEIR FATHERS. 4. AND THOU SHALT LAY THEM UP IN THE TABERNACLE OF THE CONGREGATION BEFORE THE TESTIMONY, WHERE I WILL MEET WITH YOU.