"I will give thee a pounding!" he roared; and upon this came down from his
raised form, and gave me a beating so terrible and cruel that at last the
girls cried aloud, and he let me drop on the floor, sore and angry. I lay
still awhile, and then went to my seat. As I bent over my desk, it was
rather the sense that I had been wronged, than the pain of the blows, which
troubled me.

After school, refusing speech to any, I walked home, and ministered to my
poor little bruised body as I best could. Now this being a Saturday, and
therefore a half-holiday, I ate at two with my father and mother.

Presently my father, detecting my uneasy movements, said, "Hast thou been
birched to-day, and for what badness?"

Upon this my mother said softly, "What is it, my son? Have no fear." And
this gentleness being too much for me, I fell to tears, and blurted out all
my little tragedy.

As I ended, my father rose, very angry, and cried out, "Come this way!" But
my mother caught me, saying, "No! no! Look, John! see his poor neck and his
wrist! What a brute! I tell thee, thou shalt not! it were a sin. Leave him
to me," and she thrust me behind her as if for safety.

To my surprise, he said, "As thou wilt," and my mother hurried me away. We
had a grave, sweet talk, and there it ended for a time. I learned that,
after all, the woman's was the stronger will. I was put to bed and declared
to have a fever, and given sulphur and treacle, and kept out of the
paternal paths for a mournful day of enforced rest.

On the Monday following I went to school as usual, but not without fear of