m right. I knew that boy at school;
he took great airs on himself because he was a farmer's son; he used to
swagger about and bully the little boys. Of course, we elder ones would
not have any of that nonsense, and let him know that in the school and
the playground farmers' sons and laborers' sons were all alike. I well
remember one day, just before afternoon school, I found him at the large
window catching flies and pulling off their wings. He did not see me and
I gave him a box on the ears that laid him sprawling on the floor. Well,
angry as I was, I was almost frightened, he roared and bellowed in such
a style. The boys rushed in from the playground, and the master ran in
from the road to see who was being murdered. Of course I said fair and
square at once what I had done, and why; then I showed the master the
flies, some crushed and some crawling about helpless, and I showed him
the wings on the window sill. I never saw him so angry before; but as
Bill was still howling and whining, like the coward that he was, he did
not give him any more punishment of that kind, but set him up on a stool
for the rest of the afternoon, and said that he should not go out to
play for that week. Then he talked to all the boys very seriously about
cruelty, and said how hard-hearted and cowardly it was to hurt the
weak and the helpless; but what stuck in my mind was this, he said that
cruelty was the devil's own trade-mark, and if we saw any one who took
pleasure in cruelty we might know who he belonged to, for the devil was
a murderer from the beginning, and a tormentor to the end. On the other
hand, where we saw people who loved their neighbors, and were kind to
man and beast, we might know that was God's mark."

"Your master never taught you a truer thing," said John; "there is no
religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about
their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to man
and beast it is all a sham--all a sham, James, and it won't stand when
things come to be turned inside out."

14 James Howard

Early one morning in December John had just led me into my box after my
daily exercise, and was strapping my cloth on and James was coming in
from the corn chamber with some oats, when the master came into the
stable. He looked rather serious, and held an open letter in his hand.
John fastened the door of my box, touched his cap, and waited for
orders.

"Good-morning, John," said