"But it was usual, you know, Carrie, just as you say that it is usual for masters to beat boys--as if they would do nothing, without being thrashed. I can't see any difference between the two things."
"I can see a great deal of difference, sir!"
"Well, what is the difference, Carrie?"
But Carrie disdained to give any answer. Still, as she sat sewing and thinking the matter over, she acknowledged to herself that she really could not see any good and efficient reason why boys should be beaten, any more than women.
"But women don't do bad things, like boys," she said, breaking silence at last.
"Don't they, Carrie? I am not so sure of that. I have heard of women who are always nagging their husbands, and giving them no peace of their lives. I have heard of women who think of nothing but dress, and who go about and leave their homes and children to shift for themselves. I have heard of women who spend all their time spreading scandal. I have heard of--"
"There, that is enough," Carrie broke in hastily. "But you don't mean to say that they would be any the better for beating, Gerald?"
"I don't know, Carrie; I should think perhaps they might be, sometimes. At any rate, I think that they deserve a beating quite as much as a boy does, for neglecting to learn a lesson or for playing some prank--which comes just as naturally, to him, as mischief does to a kitten. For anything really bad, I would beat a boy as long as I could stand over him. For lying, or thieving, or any mean, dirty trick I would have no mercy on him. But that is a very different thing to keeping the cane always going, at school, as they do now.
"But here comes Bob. Well, Bob, is the doctor gone? Didn't you ask him to come up, and have a cigar?"
"Yes; but he said he had got two or three cases at the hospital he must see, and would wait until this evening."