“I’ve got an awful problem on my hands, Doctor Dodd,” he told the pastor of the Methodist church the following Thursday evening. “And where it’s going to end, the Father only knows. My son’s behavior is graying my hair. Think of him having no more filial loyalty than engineering a walk-out of my employees and keeping them out until I give him a raise in his wages of six hundred per cent!” “God will humble him,” the kindly old man solaced. “The sympathy of the community is with you, Brother Forge!” III And now the long-dreaded, the sickening thing, had happened. All the father’s care and worry and training had gone for naught. Nathan had taken up with a girl! Johnathan refused to believe it. It was absolutely impossible, after all his father had said to him, and warned him, and preached to him, and threatened. The boy simply couldn’t be such a deceiver, such a double-dealer, such an ingrate—such a sneak! And yet rumors persisted. People had actually seen Nathan with the girl; swore they had seen him! True, boy and girl had been doing nothing exceptionally amiss, except strolling along unfrequented by-paths looking rather sheepish and irresponsible, and acting mutually infatuated. Still, Nathan was deliberately disobeying his father; he was “carrying on” behind his father’s back. Suppose the hussy—she must be a hussy—intrigued the boy into premature matrimony! God in heaven!—Suppose he had to marry her! Johnathan went icy at the horror of it. Better the boy lay dead in his coffin. Somehow he must be saved from his folly. Yet such was his precocity and independence that it must be done in a manner not to drive him into the girl’s arms or make him run away and therefore cause another loss of his services at the box-shop. Yes, in God’s name, what was the pitiable, harassed father to do? He prayed much over it. He lost sleep. His face grew drawn, and gray appeared in fine strands at his temples. Then one Sunday afternoon in April Johnathan came home from a few hours’ work on his books to find the gas lighted in the front parlor and some one playing on the cottage organ. The father purposely went around to the rear door. His wife was preparing supper in the kitchen. “Who’s in the parlor?” he demanded hotly. “Only Edith and a friend of hers—and Nathan.” “A friend of Edith’s—a girl?” “Yes! I didn’t think there was any harm letting them play on the organ.” “Who is she—the _girl_?” “Her name’s Gardner. She’s visiting the Cuttners. She sang in the choir last Sunday.” “Anna! Answer me, quick! Is it the girl Nat’s been seen publicly on the streets with?” “I don’t know. Perhaps so! What if it is? There’s no crime in Nat being seen walking the streets with a girl, that I know of. Nat’s got to have his girl friends some time.” “But my God, woman! Suppose she compromises the innocent, unsuspecting boy! Suppose——” “Compromises him?”