him and informed himself of
the day when he was to reappear among his playmates. On a pleasant
summer afternoon the children of the neighborhood had assembled in the
little forest-crowned amphitheatre behind the meeting-house, and the
recovering invalid was there, leaning on a staff. The glee of a score
of untainted bosoms was heard in light and airy voices, which danced
among the trees like sunshine become audible; the grown men of this
weary world as they journeyed by the spot marvelled why life,
beginning in such brightness, should proceed in gloom, and their
hearts or their imaginations answered them and said that the bliss of
childhood gushes from its innocence. But it happened that an
unexpected addition was made to the heavenly little band. It was
Ilbrahim, who came toward the children with a look of sweet confidence
on his fair and spiritual face, as if, having manifested his love to
one of them, he had no longer to fear a repulse from their society. A
hush came over their mirth the moment they beheld him, and they stood
whispering to each other while he drew nigh; but all at once the devil
of their fathers entered into the unbreeched fanatics, and, sending up
a fierce, shrill cry, they rushed upon the poor Quaker child. In an
instant he was the centre of a brood of baby-fiends, who lifted sticks
against him, pelted him with stones and displayed an instinct of
destruction far more loathsome than the bloodthirstiness of manhood.

The invalid, in the mean while, stood apart from the tumult, crying
out with a loud voice, "Fear not, Ilbrahim; come hither and take my
hand," and his unhappy friend endeavored to obey him. After watching
the victim's struggling approach with a calm smile and unabashed eye,
the foul-hearted little villain lifted his staff and struck Ilbrahim
on the mouth so forcibly that the blood issued in a stream. The poor
child's arms had been raised to guard his head from the storm of
blows, but now he dropped them at once. His persecutors beat him down,
trampled upon him, dragged him by his long fair locks, and Ilbrahim
was on the point of becoming as veritable a martyr as ever entered
bleeding into heaven. The uproar, however, attracted the notice of a
few neighbors, who put themselves to the trouble of rescuing the
little heretic, and of conveying him to Pearson's door.

Ilbrahim's bodily harm was severe, but long and careful nursing
accomplished his recovery; the injury done to his sensitive s