CHAPTER VII
THE MISSING PAPERS
Cheered by his victory in this skirmish, Aaron Rushton went on:
“I tell you what it is, Mansfield, what the boys need is to go to some good boarding school, where they’ll be under strict discipline and have to toe the mark. They’ve a soft snap here, and they know it. You let them run the whole shooting match.”
“Nothing of the kind, Aaron,” protested Mansfield. “I don’t believe in the knock-down and drag-out system of bringing up children, but, all the same, the boys always mind when I put my foot down.”
“When you put your foot down!” sneered Aaron. “How often do you put it down? Not very often, as far as I’ve been able to see. They twist you and their mother around their little fingers.
“A boy’s a good deal like a horse,” he continued. “Any horse can tell just from the feel of the reins how far he dares to go with his driver. Now, what your boys need to feel is a tight rein over their backs that’ll make ’em feel that their driver isn’t going to stand any nonsense. They don’t have that feeling at home, and it’s up to you to put them where they will feel it.”
“It might be out of the frying pan into the fire,” objected Mr. Rushton. “There are many boarding schools where the boys do just about as they like.”
“Not at the one I’m thinking about,” rejoined Aaron. “Not much, they don’t! When Hardach Rally tells a boy to do anything, that boy does it on the jump.”
“Hardach Rally,” inquired his brother, “who is he?”
“He’s a man after my own heart,” answered Aaron. “He’s one of the best disciplinarians I’ve ever met. He has a large boarding school on Lake Morora, about a mile from the town of Green Haven, the nearest railway station. I reckon it’s about a hundred miles or so from here. It’s a good school, one of the best I know of. Rally Hall, he calls it, and under his management, it’s made a big reputation. If I had boys of my own–thank Heaven, I haven’t–there’s no place I’d sooner send them.”