“Won’t they ever grow warm again?” asked Kitty, blinking away some tears.
Love looked almost as sad as when Kitty had questioned her about the cobweb, and her face was as difficult to read.
Now there came from behind the fog curtain a sharp sound of smackings.
“Whippings!” said Kitty with a gleam of fun in her eyes that dried up the lingering tears.
But it was not whippings that the fog vision showed. Again she saw a crowd of children, and each child was boxing its own ears, pulling its own hair, pinching, biting, scratching its own hands or face; making grimaces the trace of which remained. Kitty recognized some of the children she had seen in Daddy Coax’s schoolroom. There was the child who had slapped his kind old face: she was slapping her own with vigor. Slap, slap on each cheek sounded the smack of the little furious hands. There was the boy who had tried to kick Daddy Coax’s shins, kicking away—kick, kick—at his own.
“That is a splendid punishment,” said Kitty, nodding approvingly and smiling broadly.
It was an extraordinary sight to behold, clinched small fists raised as if to hurt some one else suddenly turning round and administering a sound cuff, bang, bang on their owner’s ears; to behold those spread-out tiny fingers pulling away viciously at their owner’s hair. It was a sight ludicrous and yet sad. Such swollen noses, blackened eyes; such battered, bruised, wounded children, inflicting great misery upon themselves, making themselves so ugly by grimaces that left their mark behind.
“Who are you?” cried Kitty, much excited.
“We are the passionate, willful, ungrateful children,” said a boy whom Kitty recognized to be the one who had broken Daddy Coax’s flute. He looked dismally at her and then gave himself two big thumps, one on his nose and one on his ear. “Never you hurt others, especially those who are kind to you. It’s yourself you hurt all the while,” he went on. “It’s dreadful pain when you come to feel it! dreadful! and you can’t leave off, you must keep on hurting yourself, not till you get the kiss of forgiveness. I should like to see dear old Daddy Coax again. I should like to give him a kiss and to tell him I am sorry.”