He felt that he was striving to do his duty by the boy, to bring him up to honest, sober manhood. Yet for the first time he began to wonder whether the course he was pursuing with him was just the right one to lead to that end.
He paused, and looked across the field to where Joe, who had reached his old place, was bending over a long row of corn; and his heart filled with fatherly sympathy for the lad in spite of his waywardness and obstinacy. The father felt that he would like to reason with Joe again more gently, and started to cross the field for that purpose. But fearing that Joe might think that he had repented of his severity, he turned back and made his way, with a heavy heart, toward home.
As for Joe, his anger settled before an hour had passed into a feeling of strong and stubborn resentment. That his punishment had been too severe and humiliating he had no doubt. That he had long been treated unfairly by his father and had been governed with undue strictness he fully believed.
Slowly, as he pondered over it, there came into his mind a plan to put an end to it all,—a plan which, without further consideration, he resolved to adopt. This, he was determined, should be the last whipping he would receive at his father’s hands.
He was interrupted in his brooding and his plans by a young girl, who came down toward him between the rows of springing corn. It was his sister Jennie, who was two years younger than he.
She looked up at him, as she advanced, with mingled curiosity and sympathy in her expressive eyes and face.
“Joe,” she said, in an awe-stricken voice, “did Father whip you?”
“What makes you think he whipped me?” asked Joe.
“Because, I—I heard him tell Mother so.”
“What did Mother say?”