“Your lessons begin now, young fellow. You’ll be wishing you had leather pants in about five minutes.”
He led Van across the yard, wondering, but unsuspecting, to another yard full of chickens of all sizes, from big old roosters, to half-grown pullets.
“There,” he said, as he undid the chain from Van’s collar, “that’ll be your happy home for a few minutes.”
Van took no note of the fact that Mr. Trimble had stepped inside the yard and closed the gate, nor that he was holding his right hand behind him. Instantly, at the sight of the chickens, all his old wild instincts came to life within him. He forgot the changes, he forgot the old punishments at the Hill-Top, forgot everything, except that here was sport before him, and plenty of it.
He seized a nice, well-behaved little pullet, gave it one shake, dropped it, and turned to find another, when there before him loomed Mr. Trimble, large and terrible.
“DOWN, SIR!”
Van looked for Pete to rescue him. Pete was not there. The gate was closed; there was not the slightest loophole for escape. He crouched at Mr. Trimble’s feet, awaiting the punishment that he knew was coming. He could stand a whipping. The fun of the crime to him had always been worth the punishment.
The whipping came, swift and awful; not one of Betsy’s whippings, nor yet of Dr. Johns’. No, indeed! It was like nothing that Van had ever heard of or dreamed of. Mr. Trimble knew how to whip so it would be remembered.
Van’s little body writhed with the pain and the smart of it, but never a sound did he utter, not the faintest whisper. No soldier ever showed more grit and courage. No Stoic ever shut his teeth more grimly and silently. Even as the lashings fell, Mr. Trimble could not help admiring that indomitable spirit; but duty must be done, and it was done.
There was no doubt at all about that whipping. It was the real thing, and a terrible surprise to the culprit. Mr. Trimble went away and left him in the yard, with the dead chicken before him, and the live ones all around him. For a long time Van lay without stirring. By and by Mr. Trimble brought his kennel, and put it beside him; after a while Van crawled in—a half-dead bundle of agony—and lay down and licked the welts, quivering and trembling still with the awful awakening of his first lesson.