"Tom! if you don't come to me this instant, I'll almost skin you. Margaret! take them clothes-pins away. Pretty playthings, indeed, for you to give a boy like him! No wonder I have to get a dozen new ones every two or three months." Margaret now spoke. "Tommy, you must go up to your mother." She now took the clothes-pins and commenced putting them into the basket where they belonged. Her words and action had a more instant effect than all the mother's storm of passion. The boy left the kitchen in tears, and went slowly up-stairs. "Why didn't you come when I called you? Say!" The mother seized her little boy by the arm the moment he came in reach of her, and dragged rather than led him up-stairs, uttering such exclamations as these by the way: "I never saw such a child! You might as well talk to the wind! I'm in despair! I'll give up! Humph! clothes-pins, indeed! Pretty playthings to give a child! Every thing goes to rack and ruin! There!" And, as the last word was uttered, Tommy was thrust into his mother's room with a force that nearly threw him prostrate. "Now take off them clothes, sir." "What for, mother? I haven't done any thing! I didn't hurt the clothes-pins; Margaret said I might play with them." "D'ye hear? take off them clothes, I say!" "I didn't do any thing, mother." "A word more, and I'll box your ears until they ring for a month. Take off them clothes, I say! I'll teach you to come when I send for you! I'll let you know whether I am to be minded or not!" Tommy slowly disrobed himself, while his mother, fretted to the point of resolution, eyed him with unrelenting aspect. The jacket and trousers were removed, and his night-clothes put on in their stead, Tommy all the while protesting tearfully that he had done nothing. "Will you hush?" was all the satisfaction he received for his protestations. "Now, Jane, take him up-stairs to bed; he's got to lie there all the afternoon." It was then four, and the sun did not set until near eight o'clock. Up-stairs the poor child had to go, and then his mother found some quiet. Her babe slept soundly in the cradle, undisturbed by Tommy's racket, and she enjoyed a new novel to the extent of almost entirely forgetting her lonely boy shut up in the chamber above. "Where's Tommy?" asked a friend, who dropped in about six o'clock. "In bed," said the mother, with a sigh. "What's the matter? Is he sick?" "Oh, no. I almost wish he were." "What a strange wish! Why do you wish so?" "Oh, because he is like a little angel when he is sick--as good as he can be. I had to send him to bed as a punishment for disobedience. He is a hard child to manage; I think I never saw one just like him; but, you know, obedience is every thing. It is our duty to require a strict regard to this in our children." "Certainly. If they do not obey their parents as children, they will not obey the laws as men."