"I guess he didn't try or study. What did Miss Arabella do to you when you were careless and forgot things? Or were you never bad?"
Doris hung her head, while a faint color mounted to her brow.
"When I was naughty I couldn't go out on the pony nor take him a lump of sugar. And he loved sugar so. And sometimes I had to study a psalm."
"And weren't children ever whipped in your country?"
"The common people beat their children and their wives and their horses and dogs. But Miss Arabella was a lady. She couldn't have beaten a cat."
There was a switch on the top of the closet in the kitchen that beat Tom out of doors when he ventured in. Doris' tender heart rather resented this.
Foster Leverett smiled at this distinction.
"I do suppose people might get along, but boys are often very trying."
"Don't grown-up people ever do anything wrong? And when they scold dreadfully aren't they out of temper? Miss Arabella thought it very unladylike to get out of temper. And what is done to grown people?"
Uncle Leverett laughed and squeezed the soft little hands on his knee. Yes, men and women flew into a rage every day. Their strict training had not given them control of their tempers. It had not made them all honest and truthful. Yet it might have been the best training for the times, for the heroic duties laid upon them.