ainly the handsomest and most
intelligent, man in the community. Moreover, Claude couldn't bear
ridicule very well. He squirmed before he was hit; saw it coming,
invited it. Mr. Wheeler had observed this trait in him when he
was a little chap, called it false pride, and often purposely
outraged his feelings to harden him, as he had hardened Claude's
mother, who was afraid of everything but schoolbooks and
prayer-meetings when he first married her. She was still more or
less bewildered, but she had long ago got over any fear of him
and any dread of living with him. She accepted everything about
her husband as part of his rugged masculinity, and of that she
was proud, in her quiet way.

Claude had never quite forgiven his father for some of his
practical jokes. One warm spring day, when he was a boisterous
little boy of five, playing in and out of the house, he heard his
mother entreating Mr. Wheeler to go down to the orchard and pick
the cherries from a tree that hung loaded. Claude remembered that
she persisted rather complainingly, saying that the cherries were
too high for her to reach, and that even if she had a ladder it
would hurt her back. Mr. Wheeler was always annoyed if his wife
referred to any physical weakness, especially if she complained
about her back. He got up and went out. After a while he
returned. "All right now, Evangeline," he called cheerily as he
passed through the kitchen. "Cherries won't give you any trouble.
You and Claude can run along and pick 'em as easy as can be."

Mrs. Wheeler trustfully put on her sunbonnet, gave Claude a
little pail and took a big one herself, and they went down the
pasture hill to the orchard, fenced in on the low land by the
creek. The ground had been ploughed that spring to make it hold
moisture, and Claude was running happily along in one of the
furrows, when he looked up and beheld a sight he could never
forget. The beautiful, round-topped cherry tree, full of green
leaves and red fruit,--his father had sawed it through! It lay on
the ground beside its bleeding stump. With one scream Claude
became a little demon. He threw away his tin pail, jumped about
howling and kicking the loose earth with his copper-toed shoes,
until his mother was much more concerned for him than for the
tree.

"Son, son," she cried, "it's your father's tree. He has a perfect
right to cut it down if he wants to. He's often said the trees
were too thick in here. Maybe it will be better f