the men.

"Who's been here, Crip? Socks in and shoes out, I see."

"Jo Jay, father."

"Where's the money, Crip?" and Mr. Allen turned his big, searching blue
eyes on Crip, and held forth his hand.

"Why, father," said Crip, "he hadn't any, and he wanted to go home.
It's three miles, you know, and snowing."

"Crip Allen! Do you know what you've done? You've _stolen_ a pair of
shoes."

"Oh, I haven't, father," cried Crip, "and 't was only the old,
half-worn shoes that you mended for George Hine, that he couldn't
wear."

"Christopher!" thundered forth Mr. Allen, in a voice that made the lad
shake in his boots, "go into the house and right upstairs to bed. You
have stolen a pair of shoes from your own father. You _knew_ they were
not yours to give away."

Poor Crip! Now he couldn't get a sight of the "Sweet Home" to-night,
even through the darkness and the snow.

His upper lip began to tremble and give way, but he went into the big
red house, up the front staircase to his own room, and, in the cold,
crept under the blankets into a big feather bed, and thought of Jo
plodding his way home.

About eight of the clock, when Crip was fast asleep, the door opened,
somebody walked in, and a hand touched the boy, and left a bit of cake
on his pillow; then the hand and the somebody went away, and Crip was
left alone until morning. He went down to breakfast when called. His
father's face was more stern than it had been the night before. Crip
could scarcely swallow the needful food. When breakfast was over, Mr.
Allen said:

"Christopher. Go into the garret and stay till I call you. I'll teach
you not to take what doesn't belong to you, even to give away."

"Father!" beseechingly said Crip's mother, "it is the boy's birthday."

"Go to the garret!" said Mr. Allen.

Crip went, and he was having the dismal time of it referred to in the
beginning of this story. Poor little chap! He stayed up there all the
morning, his mother's heart bleeding for him, and his sisters saying in
their hearts, "Father's awful cruel." It did seem so, but Mr.
Christopher Allen, the nation-known shipping merchant, said, fifty
years later, when relating the story to a party of friends on board one
of his fine steamships:

"That severe punishment was the greatest kindness my father ever
bestowed on my boyhood. Why, a hundred times in my life, when under the
power of a great temptation to use money in my hands that did not
belong to me, even for