“I’m too done up to lick you! I’m going to let your father lick you!” his mother assured him.
“Anna Forge, are you crazy?” my mother exploded.
“No, but I’m going to see that some discretion is put in his make-up if I have to brand it in with an iron!”
“You may brand in more than discretion, Anna.”
“I’ll take my chances!”
V
I was sobbing—mainly for Nathan’s sake—when my mother led me home. She wrapped my red, flaccid little body in warm flannels and put me to bed. I heard no censure for my part in the day’s foolishness. Only she said wearily before she took out the light:
“Please, laddie, never play ‘Slave in the Dismal Swamp’ again. You see what mother had to do, how tired she is?”
“Yes, Ma!”
“Then always remember, when a fellow does something wrong—sooner or later—somehow or other—it’s his mother that pays the price.”