The best of the harvest fields did not present the usual images of peace and contentment. “Out, out, out!” cried Anderson, to a troop of boys and girls who had pressed in at his heels as he entered a field whence the sheaves were not yet carried. “How many times am I to have the trouble of turning you out, I wonder? Wait, can’t ye, till the corn is carried?” At the flourish of his stick, the intruders took flight, and jostled each other at the gate, in their hurry to get out; but they returned, one by one, keeping in his rear, like a spider watching a fly, till they could stoop down behind a shock, and filch from the sheaves at their leisure. Following the example of the children, a woman dropped in at the gate, another entered from a gap in the fence, at a moment when the farmer had his back turned, while the heads of two or three men appeared over the wall. It was plain that the tenth commandment was not in the thoughts of any present, unless in Anderson’s own. “Here again, you rogue!” he cried, lifting up a boy by the collar from a hiding-place between two sheaves. “You are the very boy I told twice to go to the field below. There is plenty of room for you there.” “But there is no corn there, sir.” “Corn or no corn, there you shall go to be made an example of for pilfering from my sheaves. Here, Hoggets, take this lad down to the Lane field, and give him a good whipping in sight of them all.” “O, no, no! Mercy, mercy!” cried the boy. “Mother said I should have no supper,—father said he would beat me, if I did not make a good gleaning. I won’t go, I tell you; I won’t. O, sir, don’t let him beat me! Ask father! I won’t go.” Mary Kay came up to intercede. The boy was her nephew; and she could assure Mr. Anderson that John was told to go home at his peril without an apron full of corn. “Then let his parents answer for his flogging, as they ought to do, for driving the boy to steal,” said the farmer. “I am not to be encroached upon because they choose to be harsh with their boy; and I tell you, mistress, this pilfering must be put a stop to. This very season, when the crop is scanty enough at the best, I am losing more than I ever did before by foul gleaning. Let the boy’s parents be answerable for the flogging he shall have. Hoggets, take him away.” “Had you not better send Hoggets to flog the boy’s father and mother?” Mary inquired. “That would be more just, I think.” “O, do, sir, do!” entreated John; “and I will show him the way.” “I dare say you would; and this aunt of yours would find some excuse next for their not being flogged.” “I won’t promise but I might,” said Mary; “for they may have something to say about what has driven them to covet your corn. It is not the going without one supper, but the being supperless every night. Instead of a beating, once and away, such as they promised the poor lad, it is the scourge of want, sir, for week after week, and month after month.”