stonishment. He strode over and
took the pancake turner out of my hand and set the boy on his feet.
Johnnie got behind him and clung! I was so angry that I really couldn't
talk. It was all I could do not to cry.

"Come, we will take him up to the office," was all the doctor said. And
we marched out, Johnnie keeping as far from me as possible and limping
conspicuously. We left him in the outer office, and went into my library
and shut the door.

"What in the world has the child done?" he asked.

At that I simply laid my head down on the table and began to cry! I was
utterly exhausted both emotionally and physically. It had taken all the
strength I possessed to make the pancake turner effective.

I sobbed out all the bloody details, and he told me not to think about
it; the mouse was dead now. Then he got me some water to drink, and told
me to keep on crying till I was tired; it would do me good. I am
not sure that he didn't pat me on the head! Anyway, it was his best
professional manner. I have watched him administer the same treatment a
dozen times to hysterical orphans. And this was the first time in a week
that we had spoken beyond the formality of "good morning"!

Well, as soon as I had got to the stage where I could sit up and laugh,
intermittently dabbing my eyes with a wad of handkerchief, we began
a review of Johnnie's case. The boy has a morbid heredity, and may be
slightly defective, says Sandy. We must deal with the fact as we would
with any other disease. Even normal boys are often cruel. A child's
moral sense is undeveloped at thirteen.

Then he suggested that I bathe my eyes with hot water and resume
my dignity. Which I did. And we had Johnnie in. He stood--by
preference--through the entire interview. The doctor talked to him, oh,
so sensibly and kindly and humanely! John put up the plea that the mouse
was a pest and ought to be killed. The doctor replied that the welfare
of the human race demanded the sacrifice of many animals for its own
good, not for revenge, but that the sacrifice must be carried out with
the least possible hurt to the animal. He explained about the mouse's
nervous system, and how the poor little creature had no means of defense.
It was a cowardly thing to hurt it wantonly. He told John to try to
develop imagination enough to look at things from the other person's
point of view, even if the other person was only a mouse. Then he went
to the bookcase and took down my copy of Burns,