The Iron Rule | Page 6

Will any one blame the mother, that she went beyond this? A few
minutes afterward she entered the room in which Andrew had been
punished, bearing in her hands a small tray, on which was a cup of milk

and water, some toast, and a piece of cake. The twilight had already
fallen, and dusky shadows had gathered so thickly that the eyes of Mrs.
Howland failed to see her child on first entering the room.
"Andrew!" she called, in a low, tender voice.
But there was no reply.
"Andrew!"
Still all remained silent.
More accustomed to the feeble light that pervaded the chamber, Mrs.
Howland now perceived her boy in a corner, sitting upon the floor, with
his head reclining upon a low ottoman. He was asleep. Placing the tray
she had brought upon a table, Mrs. Howland lifted the child in her arms,
and as she did so, he murmured in a sad voice--
"Don't, papa! oh, don't strike so hard!"
Unable to repress her feelings, the mother's tears gushed over her
cheeks, and her bosom heaved with emotions that spent themselves in
sobs and moans.
For many minutes she sat thus. But the child slept on. Once or twice
she tried to awake him, that he might get the supper she had brought;
but he slept on soundly, and she refrained, unwilling to call him back to
the grief of mind she felt that consciousness would restore. Undressing
him, at length, she laid him in his bed, and bending over his precious
form in the deeper darkness that had now fallen, lifted her heart, and
prayed that God would keep him from evil. For a long time did she
bend thus over her boy, and longer still would she have remained near
him, for her heart was affected with an unusual tenderness, had not the
cries of her younger child summoned her from the room.
CHAPTER II

THE tears of childhood are soon dried. Grief is but as the summer rain.
On the next morning, little Andrew's voice was heard singing over the
house, as merrily as ever. But the sound did not affect, pleasantly, the
mind of his father. He had not forgotten the scene of the previous
evening, and was far from having forgiven the disobedience he had
punished so severely. Had Andrew come forth from his chamber silent
and with a sober, abashed, and fearful countenance, as if he still bore
the weight of his father's displeasure, Mr. Howland would have felt that
he had made some progress in the work of breaking the will of his child.
But to see him moving about and singing as gaily as a bird, discouraged
him.
"Have I made no impression on the boy?" he asked himself.
"Father!" said Andrew, running up, with a happy smile upon his face,
as these thoughts were passing through the mind of Mr. Howland,
"won't you buy me a pretty book? Oh! I want one--"
"Naughty, disobedient boy!"
These were the words, uttered sternly, and with a forbidding aspect of
countenance, that met this affectionate state of mind, and threw the
child rudely from his father.
Andrew looked frightened for a moment or two, and then shrunk away.
From that time until his father left the house, his voice was still. During
the morning, he amused himself with his playthings and his little sister,
and seemed well contented. But after dinner he became restless, and
often exclaimed--
"Oh! I wish I had somebody to play with!"
At length, after sitting by the window and looking out for a long time,
he turned to his mother, and said--
"Mother, can't I go and see Emily Winters?"
"No, Andrew, of course not," replied Mrs. Howland.

"Why, mother? I like her, and she's good."
"Because your father doesn't wish you go to her house. Didn't he punish
you last evening for going there?"
At this the child grew impatient, and threw himself about with angry
gestures. Then he sat down and cried for a time bitterly, while his
mother strove, but in vain, to (sic) sooth him. For hours his thoughts
had been on his little friend, and now he cared for nothing but to see
her. Denied this privilege from mere arbitrary authority, his mind had
become fretted beyond his weak ability to control himself.
It was, perhaps, an hour after this, that Mrs. Howland missed Andrew,
and fearful that he might have been tempted to disobey the command
laid upon him, raised the window and looked into the street. Just as she
did so, she saw him running back toward his home from the house of
Mr. Winters, on the steps of which sat Emily. Entering quickly, she
heard him close the street-door with a slight jar, as if he designed
making as little noise