The Iron Rule | Page 3

he was soon brought back. Gently and earnestly his mother would chide his disobedience; harshly his father would punish it--but all was of no avail.
"Where is Andrew?" asked Mr. Howland, on returning home one evening from his store, and not seeing the bright little fellow in the room with his mother. This was on the occasion of his introduction to the reader.
"I don't know. He was here just now," replied Mrs. Howland.
"I saw him a little while ago playing on the steps with Emily Winters," said the nurse, who had come recently into the family, and was not aware of the prohibition that existed in regard to the child she had mentioned.
"Is it possible!" exclaimed Mr. Howland, angrily. Then he added in an excited voice, "go and bring him home immediately!"
The nurse left the room and soon returned with the child. In his face was a look of blended fear, anger and resolution.
"Where have you been, sir?" sternly asked Mr. Howland.
The child made no answer.
"Do you hear me, sir?"
A slight motion of shrinking and alarm might have been seen in the little fellow as the angry voice of his father fell upon his ears. But he did not look up or make a reply.
"Will you answer me? Stubborn boy!" exclaimed Mr. Howland, now catching hold tightly of Andrew's arm.
"Why don't you answer your father, my child?" said the mother, in a voice that was tender and appealing. The tone reached the boy's heart, and he lifted his large blue eyes from the floor and fixed them on his father's threatening countenance.
"Say! Where have you been?" repeated Mr. Howland.
"To see Emily," returned Andrew.
"Haven't I forbidden you to go there?"
The child's eyes sunk again to the floor.
"Say! Haven't I forbidden you to go there?"
But there was no answer.
"Do you hear me?"
"Andrew! Andrew! why don't you answer your father?" came in distressed and tremulous tones from his mother's lips.
Mr. Howland was about turning to chide sharply his wife for this interference, when Andrew again raised his eyes and said--
"Yes, sir."
"Then why have you disobeyed me?"
The boy's eyes fell again, and he remained silent.
"I'll break you of this if I break your heart!" said Mr. Howland severely, and, as he spoke, he almost lifted the child from the floor with his strong arm as he led him from the room. A groan issued from the mother's heart and she covered her face and wept.
By the time Mr. Howland reached the chamber above, to which he repaired with Andrew, the excitement of his anger had subsided; but not his stern purpose in regard to his child, who had again disobeyed him. The absolute necessity of obedience in children he recognized in all its length and breadth. He saw no hope for them in the future unless obedience were constrained at every cost. Happy both for them and himself would it have been if he had been wiser in his modes of securing obedience, and more cautious about exacting from his children things almost impossible for them to perform. Without a law there is no sin. Careful, then, should every parent be how he enacts a law, the very existence of which insures its violation.
Mr. Howland had sought, by various modes of punishment, other than chastisement, to enforce obedience in this particular case. Now he was resolved to try the severer remedy. Andrew had expected nothing farther than to be shut up, alone, in the room, and to go, perhaps, supperless to bed, and he was nerved to bear this without a murmur. But when the rod became suddenly visible, and was lifted above him in the air, his little heart was filled with terror.
"Oh, father!" he exclaimed, in a voice of fear, while his upturned, appealing face became ashy pale.
"You have disobeyed me again, my son," said Mr. Howland, coldly and sternly, "and I must whip you for it. Disobedient children have to be punished."
"Oh, father! Don't whip me! Don't!" came huskily from the lips of the terrified child. But even while he thus pleaded, the smarting strokes began to fall.
"Now, sir!" at length said Mr. Howland, pausing with the rod uplifted, "will you go into Mr. Winters' again?"
The child hesitated, and down came a blow upon his tender limbs, followed by the words--
"Say! Will you go in there any more?"
Still there was a reluctance to make this promise, and another and harder stroke was given. The father was resolved to conquer, and he did conquer. A promise was extorted from the child's lips, while, his heart yielded nothing.
"Very well, sir! See that you keep your word," said Mr. Howland, as he released the writhing sufferer from his firm grasp. "If you disobey me again in this thing, I will give five times as much."
And he turned from the chamber leaving the wronged and suffering