It took several minutes to recover
from the shock of disappointment; then he said: "Lookee here!" He paused
beside a hydrant, and with his mittened hand broke off a long icicle,
held it up and turned it about so that the sun flashed on it. "Handsome,
ain't it?" he asked, timidly.

Maurice said yes, it was "handsome";--"but suppose you say _'isn't_ it'
instead of _'ain't_ it.' 'Ain't' is not a nice word. And remember what I
told you about telling the truth."

"Yes, sir," said Jacky, and trudged along, pulling his sled with one
hand and carrying his icicle in the other.

After this paternal effort, Maurice stood in the snow watching the crowd
of children--red-cheeked, shrill-voiced--sliding down Winpole Hill and
yelling and snow-balling each other as they pulled their sleds up to the
top of the slope again. It was during one of these panting tugs uphill,
that Jacky saw fit to slap a fellow coaster, a little, snub-nosed girl
with a sniffling cold in her head, and all muffled up in dirty scarves.
Instantly Maurice, striding in among the children, took his son by the
arm, and said, sharply:

"Young man, apologize! _Quick!_ Or I'll take you home!"

Jacky gaped. "Pol'gize?"

"Say you're sorry! Out with it. Tell the little girl you're sorry you
hit her."

"But I ain't," Jacky explained, anxiously; "an' you said I mustn't say
what ain't so."

"Well, tell her you won't do it again," Maurice commanded, evading, as
perplexed fathers must, moral contradictions.

Jacky, bewildered, said to his howling playmate, "I don't like you, but
I won't hit you again, less I have to; then I'll lick the tar out of
you!" He paused, rummaged in his pocket, produced a horrid precious
little gray lump of something, and handed it to her. "Gum," he said,
briefly.

Maurice, taking another step into paternal wisdom, was deaf to the
statute of limitation in the apology; but walking home with the little
boy, he said to himself, "She's ruining him!" and fell into such moody
silence that he didn't even notice Jacky's obedient struggles with
"isn't." Once, a week later, as a result of this experience, he tried to
make some ethical suggestions to Lily. She was displaying her latest
triumph--a rosebush, blossoming in _February_! And Maurice, duly
admiring the glowing flower, against its background of soot-speckled
snowdrift on the window sill, began upon Jacky's morals. Lily's
good-humored face hardened.

"Mr. Curtis, you don't need to worry abo