The Iron Rule; Or, Tyranny in the Household. Arthur Timothy Shay

me!" exclaimed Mr. Howland, in a distressed voice. "What has happened? How did he do it?"

      "Why, sir! without the slightest provocation, he took up a large stone and struck my boy with it on the forehead, knocking him down senseless. I have had to send for the doctor. It may cost him his life."

      "Oh dear! dear! What will become of that boy?" exclaimed Mr. Howland, wringing his hands, and moving up and down the floor uneasily. "Knocked him down with a stone, you say?"

      "Yes sir And that without any provocation. I can't stand this. I must, at least, protect the lives of my children. Every week I have had some complaint against your son; but I didn't wish to have a difficulty, and so said nothing about it. But this is going a little too far. He must have a dreadful temper."

      "There is something very perverse about him," remarked Mr. Howland, sadly. "Ah, me! What am I to do?"

      "There may have been some slight provocation," said the man, a little modified by the manner in which his complaint was received, and departing from his first assertion.

      "Nothing to justify an assault like this," replied Mr. Howland 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 you 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 to blind his better judgment, and to stifle the genuine appeals of nature. Instead of tenderness, forbearance, and a loving effort to lead them in right paths, and make those paths pleasant to their feet, he sternly sought to force them in the way he wished them to go. With what little success, in the case of Andrew, is already apparent.

      Angry at the unjust punishment he had received, the boy remained alone in his room until summoned to dinner.

      "He doesn't want anything to eat," said the servant, returning to the dining-room where the family were assembled at the table.

      "Oh, very well," remarked the father, in a tone of indifference, "fasting will do him good."

      "Go up, Anna," said Mr. Howland to the servant "and tell him that I want him to come down."

      That word would have been effectual, for Andrew loved his mother; but Mr. Howland remarked instantly:

      "No, no! Let him, remain. I never humor states of perverseness. If he wishes to fast he can be gratified."

      Mrs. Howland said no more, but she took only a few mouthfuls of food while she sat at the table. Her appetite was gone. After dinner she went up to Andrew's room with a saucer of peaches and cream. The moment she opened the door the lad sprung toward her, and while tears gushed from his eyes, he said—

      "Indeed, indeed, mother, I was not to blame! Bill Wilkins was going to beat me—and you know, he's a large boy."

      "But you might have killed him, Andrew," replied the mother, with a gentle gravity that, in love, conveyed reproof. "It is dangerous to throw stones."

      "I had to defend myself, mother. I couldn't let him beat me half to death. And I told him to keep off or I would strike him with the stone. I'm sure I wasn't to blame."

      "Why, was he going to beat you, Andrew? What did you do to him?" asked Mrs. Howland.

      "I'll tell you, mother," replied the boy. "He was pounding with his fist a poor little fellow, not half his size, and I couldn't stand and see it if he was a bigger boy than me. So I took the little boy's part; and then he turned on me and said he'd beat the life out of me. I ran from him and tried to get away, but he could run the fastest, and so I took up a stone and told him to keep off. But he was mad, and wouldn't keep off. So I struck him with it, and, mother, I'd do it again to-morrow. No boy shall beat me if I can defend myself."

      "Why didn't you tell your father of this?" asked Mrs. Howland.

      "I