“No! Some one put the idea into your head. Who was it?”
Nathan began to cry.
“B-B-Billy and me was talkin’ about it in the haymow this afternoon.”
“So Billy did it! I shall see Billy’s mother in the morning and have him horsewhipped for what he told you.”
Nathan began to cry harder.
“Why, Ma?” he demanded in panic.
“Because all such things are vile and dirty and filthy and horrible! Little boys who think them don’t go to heaven and have angels love them. They go to the Bad Place and are burned in fire forever and ever. You know how it hurt when you burnt your finger on my flatiron yesterday? Imagine you were burnt all over your body like that—and there was no way to stop it and you just had to suffer terribly with never a moment to sleep or forget. That’s what happens to bad little boys who say such things or even think them!”
“But why is it bad, Ma? Billy didn’t mean to be bad. We just wondered, that’s all. I can’t help thinking about ’em, can I?”
“Oh, what a wicked, wicked little boy! Your dear mother will be up in heaven and she won’t have any little son with her. Her little son will be down in the fires of hell—burning for always and always!”
The Forge woman pictured eternal torment so vividly that Nathan grew hysterical. When the woman had the boy worked into such a state that he was too terrified to stay alone in the dark because of the devils waiting to grab him, she made him promise never to think about girls or women or babies again. Sniveling, the little shaver promised.