As I sat looking at this loving couple, I could not help asking myself, with a deep, sad sigh: “Why did I not have such a mother?” Thus do the sorrows of our lives break in upon our joys. The mother continued: “All his life, since he first met you, he has been talking about you. It was Mr. Japhet this, and Mr. Japhet that, and he has always been longing to see you. I often told him to go and visit you, but he would say: ‘No, not without you, mother,’ and thus the going was delayed until he became a partner, and was entitled to a long vacation, when I said to him: ‘Now, we will see Mr. Japhet, if he can be found anywhere,’ so we started, and here we are. So you see Mr. Japhet, he is still his mother’s boy.” “Yes,” said Johnny, soberly, “I am not ashamed to say, it was first God, then mother and Japhet, all through my life. These three have been my trinity for good—” and as if talking to himself—“for to these I owe all my best impulses, and the happiness of my life.” After a few moments silence we fell to talking of our school days. “Yes,” said the mother, “Johnny has told me about them again and again. What a time you must have had! And do you know, Mr. Japhet, that he never told me about that flogging until after he left school.” “No, good mother,” he said, “I did not, for I well knew that if I told, you would have tied me to your apron-string, and never let me go back to it.” She answered with warmth: “Indeed, I would not, to such a school as that! A great brute of a man flogging a little boy for not betraying his comrades! Often when I have thought of it, years since, I have felt like going to that man, and upbraiding him for his meanness and cruelty.” “Mother, dear,” spoke Johnny, very gravely, for it was his turn to reprove, “I am surprised!” And then with a smile: “How funny you would look shaking your little fists at such a monster man, and all for such a little thing that occurred years ago.” “John, John,” she replied very sternly. “It was not a little thing, John, and you know it.” “That’s so, I surrender,” he answered. “Haven’t I felt the smart of that rattan years after, when I have thought of that scene? Not in my body, but in my sense of right and justice? Didn’t you scream though, Mr. Japhet? You never knew that I was ready to faint, and thought of dying, as those cutting strokes fell on me, but when I heard you scream, I made up my mind in an instant to be brave to the last, if I died. I would not have you think me a coward. It was your voice that gave me courage and nerve.” Thus our talk ran on. I know these things are but trifles, but the sum total of life is made up of little things, a flogging is but a small affair, but have we not all of us received cuts that we have remembered until they have become a part of our very selves, and so have changed many a destiny for good or evil?