d vineyard, for it was Monday,
and every Monday they gathered--boys and girls--from creek and hillside,
to help her as volunteers. Far up the road she heard among them taunting
laughter and jeers, and she rose quickly. A loud oath shocked the air,
and she saw a boy chasing one of the workers up the vineyard hill. She
saw the pursuer raise his hand and fall, just as he was about to hurl a
stone. Then there were more laughter and jeers, and the fallen boy picked
himself up heavily and started down the road toward her--staggering. On
he came staggering, and when he stood swaying before her there was no
shocked horror in her face--only pity and sorrow.

"Oh, Chris, Chris!" she said sadly. The boy neither spoke nor lifted
his eyes, and she led him up-stairs and put him to bed. All day he
slept in a stupor, and it was near sunset when he came down, pale,
shamed, and silent. There were several children in the porch.

"Come, Chris!" St. Hilda said, and he followed her down to the edge of
the creek, where she sat down on a log and he stood with hanging head
before her.

"Chris," she said, "we'll have a plain talk now. This is the fourth
time you've been"--the word came with difficulty--"drunk."

"Yes'm."

"I've sent you away three times, and three times I've let you come
back. I let you come back after new Christmas, only twelve days ago."

"Yes'm."

"You can't keep your word."

"No'm."

"I don't know what to do now, so I'm going to ask you."

She paused and Chris was silent, but he was thinking, and she waited.
Presently he looked straight into her eyes, still silent.

"What do _you_ think I'd better do?" she insisted.

"I reckon you got to whoop me, Miss Hildy."

"But you know I can't whip you, Chris. I never whip anybody."

Several times a child had offered to whip himself, had done so, and
she wondered whether the boy would propose that, but he repeated,
obstinately and hopelessly:

"You got to whoop me."

"I won't--I can't." Then an idea came. "Your mother will have to whip you."

Chris shook his head and was silent. He was not on good terms with his
mother. It was a current belief that she had "put pizen in his daddy's
liquer." She had then married a man younger than she was, and to the
boy's mind the absence of dignity in one case matched the crime in
the other.

"All right," he said at last; "but I reckon you better send somebody
else atter her. You can't trust me to git by that still"--he stopped