Mr. Bhaer judged rightly, that love of him would be more powerful
with Nat that fear for himself. But alas! one sad day Nat was off
his guard, and when peppery Emil threatened to thrash him, if it
was he who had run over his garden and broken down his best hills
of corn, Nat declared he didn’t, and then was ashamed to own up
that he did do it, when Jack was chasing him the night before.
He thought no one would find it out, but Tommy happened to see
him, and when Emil spoke of it a day or two later, Tommy gave
his evidence, and Mr. Bhaer heard it. School was over, and they
were all standing about in the hall, and Mr. Bhaer had just set
down on the straw settee to enjoy his frolic with Teddy; but when
he heard Tommy and saw Nat turn scarlet, and look at him with a
frightened face, he put the little boy down, saying, “Go to thy
mother, bЃbchen, I will come soon,” and taking Nat by the hand
led him into the school and shut the door.
The boys looked at one another in silence for a minute, then
Tommy slipped out and peeping in at the half-closed blinds,
beheld a sight that quite bewildered him. Mr. Bhaer had just taken
down the long rule that hung over his desk, so seldom used that it
was covered with dust.
“My eye! He’s going to come down heavy on Nat this time. Wish I
hadn’t told,” thought good-natured Tommy, for to be feruled was
the deepest disgrace at this school.
“You remember what I told you last time?” said Mr. Bhaer,
sorrowfully, not angrily.
“Yes; but please don’t make me, I can’t bear it,” cried Nat, backing
up against the door with both hands behind him, and a face full of
distress.
“Why don’t he up and take it like a man? I would,” thought
Tommy, though his heart beat fast at the sight.
“I shall keep my word, and you must remember to tell the truth.
Obey me, Nat, take this and give me six good strokes.”
Tommy was so staggered by this last speech that he nearly tumbled
down the bank, but saved himself, and hung onto the window
ledge, staring in with eyes as round as the stuffed owl’s on the
chimney-piece.
Nat took the rule, for when Mr. Bhaer spoke in that tone everyone
obeyed him, and, looking as scared and guilty as if about to stab
his master, he gave two feeble blows on the broad hand held out to
him. Then he stopped and looked up half-blind with tears, but Mr.
Bhaer said steadily:
“Go on, and strike harder.”
As if seeing that it must be done, and eager to have the hard task
soon over, Nat drew his sleeve across his eyes and gave two more
quick hard strokes that reddened the hand, yet hurt the giver more.
“Isn’t that enough?” he asked in a breathless sort of tone.
“Two more,” was all the answer, and he gave them, hardly seeing
where they fell, then threw the rule all across the room, and
hugging the kind hand in both his own, laid his face down on it
sobbing out in a passion of love, and shame, and penitence:
“I will remember! Oh! I will!”
Then Mr. Bhaer put an arm about him, and said in a tone as
compassionate as it had just now been firm:
“I think you will. Ask the dear God to help you, and try to spare us
both another scene like this.”
Tommy saw no more, for he crept back to the hall, looking so
excited and sober that the boys crowded round him to ask what
was being done to Nat.
In a most impressive whisper Tommy told them, and they looked
as if the sky was about to fall, for this reversing the order of things
almost took their breath away.
“He made me do the same thing once,” said Emil, as if confessing
a crime of the deepest dye.
“And you hit him? dear old Father Bhaer? By thunder, I’d just like
to see you do it now!” said Ned, collaring Emil in a fit of righteous