The Iron Rule | Page 9

with promptness. "Nothing! Nothing! The boy will be the death of me."
"Caution him, if you please, Mr. Howland, against a repetition of such dangerous conduct. The result might be deplorable."
"I will do something more than caution him, you may be sure," was answered, and, as he spoke, the lips of Mr. Howland were drawn tightly across his teeth.
The man went away, and Mr. Howland dispatched a messenger to the school for Andrew immediately, and then started for home. He had been there only a little while, when the boy came in with a frightened look. To his father's eyes conscious guilt was in his countenance.
"Go up stairs, sir!" was the stern salutation that met the lad's ears.
"Father, I--"
"Silence, sir! Don't let me hear a word out of your head!"
The boy shrunk away and went up to his own room in the third story, whither his angry father immediately followed him.
"Now, sir, take off your jacket!" said Mr. Howland who had a long, thick rattan in his hand.
"Indeed father," pleaded the child, "I wasn't to blame. Bill Wilkins--"
"Silence, sir! I want none of your lying excuses! I know you! I've talked to you often enough about quarreling and throwing stones."
"But, father--"
"Off with your jacket, this instant! Do (sic) your hear me?
"Oh, father! Let me speak! I couldn't--"
"Not a word, I say! I know all about it!" silenced the pleading boy. His case was prejudged, and he was now in the hands of the executioner. Slowly, and with trembling hands, the poor child removed his outer garment, his pale face growing paler every moment, and then submitting himself to the cruel rod that checkered his back with smarting welts. Under a sense of wrong, his proud spirit refused to his body a single cry of pain. Manfully he bore his unjust chastisement, while every stroke obliterated some yet remaining emotion of respect and love for his father, who, satisfied at length with strokes and upbraiding, threw the boy from him with the cutting words--
"I shall yet have to disown you!" and turning away left the apartment.
CHAPTER III.

WHILE Mr. Howland yet paced the floor in a perturbed state of mind, after the severe flogging he had given to Andrew, and while he meditated some further and long-continued punishment for the offences which had been committed, a servant handed him a note. It was from Andrew's teacher, and was to this effect--
"From careful inquiry, I am entirely satisfied that your son, when he threw the stone at William Wilkins, was acting in self-defence, and, therefore, is blameless. Wilkins is a quarrelsome, overbearing lad, and was abusing a smaller boy, when your son interfered to protect the latter. This drew upon him the anger of Wilkins, who would have beaten him severely if he had not protected himself in the way he did. Before throwing the stone, I learn that Andrew made every effort to get away; failing in this, he warned the other not to come near him. This warning being disregarded, he used the only means of self-protection left to him. I say this in justice to your son, and to save him from your displeasure. As for Wilkins, I do not intend to receive him back into my school."
For a long time Mr. Howland remained seated in the chair he had taken on receiving the teacher's note. His reflections were far from being agreeable. He had been both unjust and cruel to his child. But for him to make an acknowledgment of the fact was out of the question. This would be too humiliating. This would be a triumph for the perverse boy, and a weakening of his authority over him. He had done wrong in not listening to his child's explanation; in not waiting until he had heard both sides. But, now that the wrong was done, the fact that he was conscious of having done wrong must not appear. In various ways he sought to justify his conduct. At length he said, half aloud--
"No matter. He deserved it for something else, and has received only his deserts. Let him behave himself properly, and he'll never be the subject of unjust censure."
It was thus that the cold-hearted father settled, with his own conscience, this question of wrong toward his child. And yet he was a man who prayed in his family, and regularly, with pious observance, attended upon the ordinances of the church. In society he was esteemed as a just and righteous man; in the church as one who lived near to heaven. As for himself, he believed that severity toward his boy, and intolerance of all the weaknesses, errors, and wayward tendencies of childhood, were absolutely needed for the due correction of evil impulses. Alas! that he, like too many of his class, permitted anger toward his children's faults