only renewed his weeping and clutched her tightly. There, little by
little, he forgot the mishaps of the day. There the anguish lifted
from his heart, and when his mother asked, "Harold, why did you go
into the water when we told you not to?" the child only shook his
head, and, after repeated questioning, his answer came,--

"Well, they asked me, mom."

"Who asked you?" persisted Mrs. Jones.

"Piggy Pennington and Jimmy Sears," returned the lad.

[Illustration: _Mrs. Jones stooped to the floor and took her child by
an arm_.]

To the query, "Well, do you have to do everything they ask you to,
Harold?" the lad's answer was a renewal of the heart-breaking sobs.
These softened the mother's heart, as many and many a woman's heart
has been melted through all the ages. She soothed the truant child and
petted him, until the cramping in his throat relaxed sufficiently to
admit of the passage of an astonishingly large slice of bread and
butter and sugar. After it was disposed of, Harold busied himself by
assorting his old iron scraps on the back porch, and his mother smiled
as she fancied she heard the boy trying to whistle a tune.

Harold had left the porch before his father came home with the
beefsteak for supper, and Mrs. Jones met her husband with: "Pa Jones,
what could you be thinking of--punishing that boy before the other
children? Do you want to break what little spirit he has? Why, that
child was nearly in hysterics for an hour after you left!"