experience of family discipline. She never thought of it again.

That year which took Emmy's mother from her brought to the child her first
young companion and friend. Adam Bogardus came as chore-boy to the
farm,--an only child himself, and sensitive through the clashing of gentle
instincts with rough and inferior surroundings; brought up in that
depressed God-fearing attitude in which a widow not strong, and earning
her bread, would do her duty by an only son. Not a natural fighter, she
took what little combativeness he had out of him, and made his school-days
miserable--a record of humiliations that sunk deep and drove him from his
kind. He was a big, clumsy, sagacious boy, grave as an old man, always
snubbed and condescended to, yet always trusted. Little Emmy made him her
bondslave at sight. His whole soul blossomed in adoration of the
beautiful, masterful child who ordered him about as her vassal, while
slipping a soft little trustful hand in his. She trotted at his heels like
one of the lambs or chickens that he fed. She brought him into perpetual
disgrace with Becky, for wasting his time through her imperious demands.
She was the burden, the delight, the handicap, the incentive, and the
reward of his humble apprenticeship. And when he was promoted to be one of
the regular hands she followed him still, and got her pleasure out of his
day's work. No one had such patience to tell her things, to wait for her
and help her over places where her tagging powers fell short. But though
she bullied him, she looked up to him as well. His occupations commanded
her respect. He was the god of the orchards and of the cider-making; he
presided at all the functions of the farm year. He was a perfect calendar
besides of country sports in their season. He swept the ice pools in the
meadow for winter sliding, after his day's work was done. He saved up
paper and string for kite-making in March. He knew when willow bark would
slip for April's whistles. In the first heats of June he climbed the tall
locust-trees to put up a swing in which she could dream away the perfumed