Billy's eyes were turned upward to the face of his father in appealing agony; but still the switch, with a sharp hiss, cut the air, falling steadily and mercilessly on his shoulders. All along the green banks of the river the willows shook their shining fingers at the lifting fog, and the voices of children going by to the distant school smote the sweet May wind. "Whippee! Whippee-tippee-tee!" sang the cardinal bird. "O pap! ouch! O-o-o! I'll not forget to water the pigs no more!" "S'pect you won't, neither!" said the man. The wind, by a sudden puff, lifted into the room a shower of white bloom petals from a sweet apple tree, letting them fall gracefully upon the patchwork carpet, the while a ploughman whistled plaintively in a distant field. "Crackee! O pap! ouch! O-o-o! You're a killin' me!" "Shet your mouth 'r I'll split ye to the backbone in a second! Show ye how to run off fishin' with Ed Jones and neglect them pigs! Take every striffin of hide off'n ye!" How many delightful places in the woods, how many cool spots beside the murmuring river, would have been more pleasant to Billy than the place he just then occupied! He would have swapped hides with the very pigs he had forgot to water. "O, land! O, me! Geeroody me!" yelled the lad. "Them poor pigs!" rejoined the father. Still the dust rose and danced in the level jet of sunlight that fell athwart the room from the east window, and the hens out at the barn cackled and sang for joy over new laid eggs stowed away in cosy places. At one time during the falling of the rod the girl quit washing the dishes, and thrusting her head into the kitchen said, in a subdued tone: "My land! Mammy, ain't Bill a gittin' an awful one this load o' poles?" "You're moughty right!" responded the matron, solemnly. Along toward the last Mr. Coulter tip-toed at every stroke. The switch actually screamed through the air. Billy danced and bawled and made all manner of serio-comic faces and contortions. "Now go, sir," cried the man, finally tossing the frizzled stump of the switch out through the window. "Go now, and next time I'll be bound you water them pigs!" And, while the finch poured a cataract of melody from the locust tree, Billy went. Poor boy! that was a terrible thrashing, and to make it worse, it had been promised to him on the evening before, so that he had been dreading it and shivering over it all night! Now, as he walked through the breakfast room, his sister looked at him in a commiserating way, but on passing through the kitchen he could not catch the eye of his mother. Finally he stood in the free open air in front of the saddle closet. It was just then that a speckled rooster on the barn yard fence flapped his wings and crowed lustily. A turkey cock was strutting on the grass by the old cherry tree.