"The poor dog whined and cried most piteously, but James persevered until the poor creature was firmly fastened to the board. Having done this, he ran to cell his sister, and stood laughing at her distress."
"'Oh, take him off! take out the nails quick! he'll die!' screamed the poor girl. 'O James, see how the blood runs!' Finding he would not listen to her entreaties, she ran to the nearest house to call a neighbor; and they had just succeeded in releasing Frisk from his dreadful position, when her parents drove into the yard."
"'If he were my boy,' said the neighbor, after he had related in what a situation he found the poor dog, 'If he were my boy, I should give him a taste of the horsewhip for his cruelty. I've heard of his tricks before to-day.'"
"James was whipped most severely, besides being confined to his room for two days; but it did him no good. Only the next week, in a fit of passion, he threw one of the kitties into a boiler of hot water, where it died in dreadful agony."
"James was a bright boy in his studies, and almost always stood at the head of his class at school, but his schoolmates despised him for his fiery temper and his cruel disposition. He seemed to like nothing so well as to see others suffer. Even the little children at the school were afraid of him, for he often fixed pins in the cracks of their seats, so as to make them scream with pain, or hid their dinner-pails, and then laughed when they cried with hunger."
"I cannot stop to tell you all the wickedness of James's early life; but must pass over a great many years, till the time he was a man. He was quite distinguished for his learning, and having sense enough to conceal his wickedness, he had come to occupy an important station in society."
"One day a man who owed him a bill, entered his office, when, in order to avoid paying it, James struck the man a violent blow which killed him. Then he cut the body into small pieces, burning some of it, and hiding the rest. He was suspected of the crime, tried, condemned, and hung; and this was the end of the cruel boy."
"O mamma!" cried Eddy, "I'll never do so again. I'll never be cruel any more!"
Susy sat wiping away her tears with her dimpled hand, when Mrs. Lander called them both to her side. "Do you wonder, now, my dear, that I was so distressed this morning when I saw you chopping up the little fishes! My heart ached lest you should become like that wicked man."
"I never will hurt anything again," urged Eddy, trying to keep back his tears. "I will try to be kind to them, as Susy is."