"I ain't no impudent 'ittle boy, either! I went to hunt with my brothers yistidy and I carried all the game, and now you goin' eat it all and leave me none when I'm hungry. You're mean man and make me mad!"

As he spoke everything seemed to grow dark around him. He recalled that he was suddenly snatched from the teacher's lap, and carried to the summer kitchen which was all closed and dark inside. He recalled that switches were there, and that soon he felt them. As a rule he cried and begged before he was ever touched; but strangely then he never cried, and he never begged. He just kept his mouth shut tightly, and had borne all the pain inflicted by his mother, and she had punished him longer than she had ever done before. Perhaps it was because she felt she had to make him cry; felt that he must cry else he had not repented. After a time he felt terribly dazed, became sleepy, and gradually fell into a slumber while the blows continued to fall.

How long he slept he could not remember, but gradually he came out of it. There were no more blows then. Yet, his little body felt sore all over. When he looked up (for he was lying on his back in the summer kitchen), his mother sat near and was crying and wiping the tears with her apron, while over him bent the teacher, and she was crying also. And as the tears had fallen unchecked upon his face he had heard the teacher saying:

"It's a shame, an awful shame! The poor, poor little fellow! He was hungry and had helped to get the game. And to be punished so severely because he wanted to eat is a shame! Oh, Mrs. Baptiste, you must pray to your God for forgiveness!" And his mother had cried more than ever then.

Presently he heard a heavy footfall, and peeped upward to see his father standing over him. His father was fair of complexion, and unlike his mother, never said much and was not commonly emotional. But when he was angry he was terrible, and he was angry now. His blue eyes shone like fire.

"What is this, Belle," he cried in a terrible voice, "you've killed my boy about that d—n preacher!" His father stooped and looked closely into his face. In fear he had opened his eyes. "Jean!" he heard his father breathe, "God, but it's a blessing you are alive, or there would be a dead preacher in that house."