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

hush my boy! don't say that. Don't speak so of your father."

      "Well, I'm sure he don't love me," persisted Andrew.

      "Oh, yes, he does love you. He only dislikes what is wrong in you. My son must try to be a good boy."

      "I do try, mother; I try almost every day. But somehow I do wrong things without thinking. I'm always sorry at first; sorry until father begins to scold or whip me, and then I don't seem to care anything about it. Oh, dear! I wish father wasn't always so cross!"

      While Andrew thus talked, his tears had ceased to flow; but now they gushed over his cheeks again, and he leaned his face upon his mother's bosom. Mrs. Howland drew her arms closely around her unhappy boy, while her own eyes became wet. For many minutes there was silence. At last she said, in a kind, earnest voice—

      "I've brought you a nice saucer of peaches and cream, Andrew."

      "I don't want them, mother," replied the lad.

      "You'll be hungry before night, dear. It's nearly school-time now, and you'll get nothing to eat until you come home again."

      "I don't feel at all hungry, mother."

      "Just eat them for my sake," urged Mrs. Howland.

      Without a word more Andrew took the saucer.

      "Ain't they nice?" asked Mrs. Howland, as she saw that her boy relished the fruit and cream.

      "Yes, dear mother! they are very good," replied Andrew; "and you are good, too. Indeed I love you, mother!"

      The last sentence was uttered with visible emotion.

      "Then, for my sake, try and do right, Andrew," said Mrs. Howland, tenderly.

      "I will try, mother," returned the boy. "I do try often; but I forget myself a great many times."

      Soon after Andrew started for school. On arriving, his teacher called him up and said—

      "Did your father get my note?"

      "I don't know, sir," replied Andrew.

      "What did he say to you?"

      The boy's eyes sunk to the floor and he remained silent.

      "I sent your father a note immediately," said the teacher, "telling him that you were not to blame."

      Andrew looked up quickly into his teacher's face, while a shadow fell upon his countenance.

      "You don't know whether he received it?"

      "No sir."

      The teacher called up another lad, and inquired if he had delivered the note given him at the dwelling of Mr. Howland, as directed. The boy replied that he had done so.

      "Very, well. You can take your seat."

      Then turning to Andrew, the teacher said—

      "Was it about William Wilkins that your father sent for you?"

      "Yes, sir."

      "You told him how it was?"

      The boy was silent.

      "He didn't punish you, surely?"

      Tears trembled on the closing lashes of the injured child; but he answered nothing. The teacher saw how it was, and questioned him no farther. From that time he was kinder toward his wayward and, too often, offending scholar, and gained a better influence over him.

      Not for a moment, during the afternoon, was the thought that his father knew of his blamelessness absent from Andrew's mind. And, when he returned home, his heart beat feverishly in anticipation of the meeting between him and his parent. He felt sure that the teacher's note had reached his father after the punishment had been inflicted; and he expected, from an innate sense of right and justice, that some acknowledgment, grateful to his injured feelings, of the wrong he had suffered, would be made. There was no thought of triumph or reaction against his father. He had been wrongly judged, and cruelly punished; and all he asked for or desired was that his father should speak kindly to him, and say that he had been blamed without a cause. How many a dark shadow would such a gleam of sunshine have dispelled from his heart. But no such gleam of light awaited his meeting with his father, who did not even raise his eyes to look at him as he came into his presence.

      For awhile Andrew lingered in the room where his father sat reading, hoping for a word that would indicate a kinder state of feeling toward him. But no such word was uttered. At length he commenced playing with a younger brother, who, not being able to make him do just as he wished, screamed out some complaint against him, when Mr. Howland looked up, suddenly, with a lowering countenance, and said, harshly—

      "Go out of the room, sir! I never saw such a boy! No one can have any peace where you are!"

      Andrew started, and made an effort to explain and excuse himself, for he was very anxious not to be misunderstood again just at this time. But his father exclaimed, more severely than at first.

      "Do you hear me, sir! Leave this room instantly!"

      The boy went out hopeless. He felt that he was unloved by his father. Oh! what would he not have given—what sacrifice would he not have made—to secure a word and a smile of affection from his stern parent, whom he had known from childhood only as one who reproved and punished.

      CHAPTER IV

      WRONGED and repelled, Andrew left the presence of his father, sad, hopeless, yet with a sense of indignation in his heart against that father for the wrong he had suffered at his hands.

      "It's no use for me to try to do right," he murmured to himself. "If I want to be good, they won't let me."