moving little Ernie ran to put his arm round Elsa.

"Don't you hit my sister again, Rog Moore!"

Roger jumped up and down and kicked the barrel. "You get out of my yard!
I hate you all!"

"Not me, Roger?" cried Charley, anxiously, running up to take his hand.

Curiously enough even in his blind passion, the boy clung to the
childish fingers, the while he continued to kick the barrel and to roar,

"I'll kill you, Elsa!"

The screen door clicked and Mrs. Moore hurried down the back steps. She
was very tall and slender, with Roger's blue eyes and a mass of red
hair piled high on her head. She carried one of Roger's stockings with a
darning ball in the toe in her left hand and the thimble gleamed on the
middle finger of her right hand as she put it on Roger's shoulder.

"Roger! Roger! You're rousing the whole neighborhood!"

Roger struck the slender hand from his shoulder. "I hate you too. Let me
alone!"

Mrs. Moore turned to the others. "Children, take Charley over in your
yard for a little while. Roger is being a very bad boy and I must punish
him."

Roger hung back, still roaring, but his mother dragged him into the
kitchen. Here she sat down in a rocker and attempted to pull him into
her lap, but he would have none of her. He threw himself sobbing on the
floor and Mrs. Moore sat looking at him sadly.

"I don't know what we're going to do about your temper, Roger. This is
the third spell you've had this week. I don't see why the children play
with you. Some day you _will_ murder some one, I'm afraid. I used to
have a temper when I was a child but I'm certain it was nothing like
yours. One thing I'm sure of, I never struck my dear mother. Thank
heaven, I haven't that regret."

Roger wept on.

"I've tried whipping and I've tried scolding. Perhaps I'm the wrong
mother for you--" A long pause, during which Roger's slender body did
not cease to writhe in sobs. Then his mother continued: "Poor little
Elschen, that was an awful knock you gave her! I shall have to apologize
to Mrs. Wolf again. She's always sweet about your badness."

She began work on the stocking once more. Roger's sobs lessened and his
mother rose to wet a towel-end and bathe his face. But when she returned
from the sink, the child was asleep, his head pillowed on his arm. It
was thus that his temper storms always ended. Mrs. Moore had observed
that when she had whipped him for one of his explosions, he always slept
much longer than when she