Robert's cheeks and ears were beginning to burn.
"Father won't give me an air-gun," he said, presently. "He says it will make me hard-hearted to kill anything—even English sparrows. But I thought all boys threw snowballs."
"Perhaps they do," said Mr. Spencer. "I wish they could know some of the risks they run and the pain they give. I have seen little girls come home from school, crying and hurt, and I knew they had been snowballed."
"They were pretty mean boys who did that," began Robert. "We don't throw snowballs at girls."
"Tired old men and hard-working horses and other busy workers are not much better targets," said Mr. Spencer, and again Robert's cheeks flamed. "Perhaps, however, your snowballs always go just where you intend to have them. That makes it safer, of course."
The farmer's tone was so polite that Robert looked up suspiciously.
There was a twinkle in the kind, gray eyes.
"Now, Robert," said Mr. Spencer, good-humoredly, "you have heard me preach a good many sermons since you came. Let me tell you just one thing to remember. Don't do anything, to any living creature, which you wouldn't enjoy if you were in its place."
"Why, that's the Golden Rule," said Robert.
"I know it," said the farmer, as he drove into the clean, pleasant yard, "but I never heard that the Golden Rule wouldn't work wherever it was tried."