though with many allusions to the two wanderers, until at fourteenthly came the long-deferred end. Nor was there any murmur of feeling heard (though the mothers’ eyes were filled with tears), when Deacon Fayerweather, in a slightly trembling voice, lined out the Psalm: O give yee thanks unto the Lord because that good is hee, Because his loving-kindness lasts in perpetuitee. I’th’ desart in a desart way they wandered: no towne finde to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty their Soul within them pinde. Then did they to Jehovah cry when they were in distresse Who did them set at liberty out of their anguishes. In such a way as was most right he led them forth also That to a citty which they might inhabit they might go. I wish I could say that the boys’ parents, being so glad to get the wanderers home, permitted them to go unpunished, but alas! early New Englanders believed firmly that “foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child,” and never spared the rod; and, as “sloathefulnes” and disobedience to parents were specially abominated, such high-handed rebellion as this of Elam and Cotton could hardly be allowed to pass by without being made a public example. Then, too, unfortunately for the boys, the warmth of joy at recovering the lost ones had time through the two hours of sermon to cool down and change into indignation. So at the close of the service Deacon Fayerweather, after rather coldly greeting his son and nephew, asked the advice of the minister upon so important a subject, who gave as his opinion that the gravity of the offence, the necessity of the lesson to other youths in the congregation, and the conveniency of circumstances seemed to point out plainly, and was furthermore upheld by Scripture, that public chastisement should be given upon the spot, and that Elder Rogers was best fitted, both by age, dignity, and strength, to administer both rebuke and punishment. And with promptness and despatch and thoroughness the decree was carried out; both boys were “whipped with birchen rods” while standing upon the horse-block before the church. But though the colonial fathers were stern and righteously disciplinarian, the colonial mothers were loving and tender, as are mothers everywhere and in all times, and Mistress Fayerweather and Mistress Noyes each bore off her weeping boy to the noon-house and filled his empty stomach well with dough-nuts and pork and peas and pumpkin-bread, until, with comfort and plenty within, external woes and past terrors were forgotten. THE DOCTOR’S PIE-PLATES