"No sir."
The teacher called up another lad, and inquired if he had delivered the note given him at the dwelling of Mr. Howland, as directed. The boy replied that he had done so.
"Very, well. You can take your seat."
Then turning to Andrew, the teacher said--
"Was it about William Wilkins that your father sent for you?"
"Yes, sir."
"You told him how it was?"
The boy was silent.
"He didn"t punish you, surely?"
Tears trembled on the closing lashes of the injured child; but he answered nothing. The teacher saw how it was, and questioned him no farther. From that time he was kinder toward his wayward and, too often, offending scholar, and gained a better influence over him.
Not for a moment, during the afternoon, was the thought that his father knew of his blamelessness absent from Andrew"s mind. And, when he returned home, his heart beat feverishly in antic.i.p.ation of the meeting between him and his parent. He felt sure that the teacher"s note had reached his father after the punishment had been inflicted; and he expected, from an innate sense of right and justice, that some acknowledgment, grateful to his injured feelings, of the wrong he had suffered, would be made. There was no thought of triumph or reaction against his father. He had been wrongly judged, and cruelly punished; and all he asked for or desired was that his father should speak kindly to him, and say that he had been blamed without a cause. How many a dark shadow would such a gleam of sunshine have dispelled from his heart. But no such gleam of light awaited his meeting with his father, who did not even raise his eyes to look at him as he came into his presence.
For awhile Andrew lingered in the room where his father sat reading, hoping for a word that would indicate a kinder state of feeling toward him. But no such word was uttered. At length he commenced playing with a younger brother, who, not being able to make him do just as he wished, screamed out some complaint against him, when Mr.
Howland looked up, suddenly, with a lowering countenance, and said, harshly--
"Go out of the room, sir! I never saw such a boy! No one can have any peace where you are!"
Andrew started, and made an effort to explain and excuse himself, for he was very anxious not to be misunderstood again just at this time. But his father exclaimed, more severely than at first.
"Do you hear me, sir! Leave this room instantly!"
The boy went out hopeless. He felt that he was unloved by his father. Oh! what would he not have given--what sacrifice would he not have made--to secure a word and a smile of affection from his stern parent, whom he had known from childhood only as one who reproved and punished.
CHAPTER IV.
WRONGED and repelled, Andrew left the presence of his father, sad, hopeless, yet with a sense of indignation in his heart against that father for the wrong he had suffered at his hands.
"It"s no use for me to try to do right," he murmured to himself. "If I want to be good, they won"t let me."
As these thoughts pa.s.sed through his mind, a feeling of recklessness came over him, and he said aloud--
"I don"t care what I do!"
"Don"t you, indeed?"
The voice that uttered this sentence caused him to start. It was the voice of his father, who had left his room soon after the expulsion of Andrew, and was at the moment pa.s.sing near, un.o.bserved by the boy.
"Don"t care what you do, ha!" repeated Mr. Howland, standing in front of the lad, and looking him sternly in the face. "You"ve spoken the truth for once!"
For nearly a minute Mr. Howland stood with contracted brows, scowling upon the half-frightened child. He then walked away, deeply troubled and perplexed in his mind.
"What is to become of this boy?" he said to himself. "He really seems to be one of those whom Satan designs to have, that he might sift them as wheat. I sadly fear that he is given over to a hard heart, and a perverse mind--one predestinated, to evil from his birth. Ah me! Have I not done, and am I not still doing everything to restrain him and save him! But precept, admonition, and punishment, all seem, thrown away. Even my daily prayers for him remain unanswered. They rise no higher than my head. What more can I do than I am now doing? I have tried in every way to break his stubborn will, but all is of no avail."
While Mr. Howland mused thus, Andrew, oppressed by the sphere of his father"s house, was pa.s.sing out at the street door, although expressly forbidden to go away from home after his return from school. For some time he stood leaning against the railing, with a pressure of unhappiness on his heart. While standing thus, a lad who was pa.s.sing by said to him--
"Come, Andy! there"s a company of soldiers around in the Square.
Hark! Don"t you hear the music? Come! I"m going."
This was a strong temptation, for Andrew loved music and was fond of sight-seeing. It would be useless, he knew, to ask the permission of his father, who usually said "No," to almost every request for a little liberty or privilege. Especially at the present moment would the request of this kind be useless.
"Come, Andy! come!" urged the boy, for Andrew, restraining the first impulse to bound away at the word soldiers, was debating the question whether to go or not.
Just then the air thrilled with a wave of music, and Andrew, unable longer to control himself, sprung away with his companion. For half an hour he enjoyed the music and military evolutions, and then returned home.
"Where have you been, sir?" was the sharp question that greeted him as he came in.
"Around in the Square, to see the soldiers," replied Andrew.
"Who gave you permission to go?"
"No one, sir. I heard the music, and thought I"d just go and look at them a little while. I"ve not been doing anything wrong, sir."
"Wrong! Isn"t disobedience wrong? Haven"t I forbidden you, over and over again, to leave the house after school without my permission?
Say! You don"t care what you do! That"s it! Go off up stairs with you, to your own room, and you"ll get nothing but bread and water until to-morrow morning! I"ll teach you to mind what I say!"
The boy went sadly up to his room. It had been a day of severer trial than usual--of greater wrong and outrage upon him as a child.
For the time his spirit was broken, and he wept bitterly when alone in his silent chamber, that was to be his prison-house until the dawn of another day.
"Where is Andrew?" asked Mrs. Howland, as her little family gathered at the supper table, and she found that one was missing.
"I"ve sent him up to his room. He can"t have anything but bread and water to-night," replied Mr. Howland, in a grave tone.
"What has the poor child done, now?" inquired the mother, in a troubled voice.
"He went off to see the soldiers, though he had been expressly forbidden to leave the house after coming home from school."
"Oh, dear! He"s always doing something wrong--what will become of him?" sighed the mother.
"Heaven only knows! If he escape the gallows in the end, it will be a mercy. I never saw so young a child with so perverse an inclination."
"Andrew had no dinner to-day," said Mrs. Howland, after a little while.
"His own fault," replied the father, "he chose to fast."
"He must be very hungry by this time. Won"t you allow him something more than bread and water?"