chard, and shut the dog out.

Mr. Gilbert selected an apple tree, because the wood was tougher than
that of a peach. From it he cut two switches a yard long, and carefully
pared the knots, his wife observing without a word or a movement, and
the boy looking away into the distance. When Mr. Gilbert had done, he
ordered his son to prepare.

The lad numbly, dumbly removed his coat and waistcoat, slipped his
suspenders down, tightened the strap at the back of his trousers,
clasped his hands in front, and bowed his head. The dog, which had crept
to the fence and was peering through the pickets, whined anxiously and
was quivering. When roughly ordered away by Mr. Gilbert, he went upon a
terrace that overlooked the fence, and trembled as he watched. The boy
did not once look toward him. He was struggling with the pain in his
throat.

Mr. Gilbert offered one of the switches to his wife.

"Oh, how can you!" she pleaded.

"You must," he firmly said. "I'll relieve you when you are tired."

The boy's mind suddenly cleared, and he comprehended. A whipping from
his father would be frightful enough,--not for the blows; they were
nothing. The plan was not alone to humiliate him beyond all measure, but
to scourge his soul, ravage the sanctuary of his mother there, rend him
asunder, and cast him into an unthinkable hell of isolation; for she was
the bond that held him to the world, she was the human comfort and
sweetness of his life.

Since his tenth year his discipline had been solely in her hands, his
father having given him up as worthless, hopeless. She had whipped him
many a time, but not for two years; and he had felt no pain, no shame,
no outrage, no resentment. The case of the teacher was different. Ray
had solemnly sworn, renewing the oath every day, that when he came to
manhood he would beat his teacher to death for whipping him so often and
severely because of his dulness, his apathy, or his rebellion; the
whippings from his mother had only increased his tenderness for her,
and, in some way that he could not understand, his pity also. Perhaps it
was because he vaguely felt that she was impairing something in herself
that was precious to him. Never had she conquered him; never had he
cried out in pain, never pleaded for mercy, never confessed penitence
nor promised reform.

Mrs. Gilbert shut her teeth hard, and, deathly white in the moonlight,
raised the switch. It was poised a moment, and then her arm fell limp to
he