“And leave this boy to be squeezed to death? I never saw a Mayo around Foxboro yet that wasn’t a fool!” Mrs. Forge wrung her hands. “Oh, oh, oh! Somebody’s got to climb that tree and cut this boy down and do it quickly, or he’ll die o’ pinched vitals! Oh! oh! oh!” “But if he’s cut down sudden, he’ll land on his head and break his neck,” groaned Mrs. Harper. “Why on earth should they hang him upside down?” Nat’s unpremeditated inversion had complicated matters. And all this time the spy was kicking and struggling and bellowing until it was a mystery why he wasn’t heard down in the business part of the town. Moreover, the prospects were that if he were left there much longer, any attempts to cut him down would be superfluous; he was coming down himself—in halves! But the Providence that looks after children, drunken men and fools was proverbially kind that afternoon. It sent old Amos Winch riding past atop a load of oats. Amos took note of a kicking, shrieking boy suspended from an apple bough above a group of distraught women and children and came down through that orchard in jumps. As he ran, he unclasped a big pocketknife. Out on the limb, he wound a taut rope twice about his mighty hand. Then he hacked and cut above it. Hand over hand he hauled the little Forge boy up, caught him firmly by the collar and straightened him out. Immediately that he was down and manifestly unhurt, Mrs. Forge walked over to a lower apple bough and pulled off a “sucker.” She stripped the switch clean of leaves and grasped her youngster firmly by the collar. “But Ma!—I didn’t mean to do it! Please, Ma, don’t whip me. I didn’t mean to do it!” “I suppose you got hung upside down like that accidentally.” “We was only just playing ‘Hang the Spy’!” “And scaring your good, dear mother in consequence so she’s nearly a nervous wreck. I’m going to see you remember never to do such a thing again.” “Anna!” interposed my mother, “don’t be a fool!” “You keep out of this!” snapped Mrs. Forge. “I can run my own young ones without assistance from the neighbors.” And there, before that distressed audience, Nathan “got it good.” III I have not narrated this episode especially to excoriate Anna Forge. I mention it because—horror of horrors!—among the teams to be blocked in the road by Amos Winch’s cart was the neat piano-box buggy and mare of Caleb Gridley. The Duchess was out for a drive with the Dresden Doll. Nathan knew that the princess of his dreams was beholding him “catching it.” And the welts of that switch did not manufacture half as much pain as the hurts which resulted to his dignity. For a boy has dignity. It is usually a hard, honest, legitimate dignity in sharp contrast to mere self-elation too often masquerading under that name among older people. And that boyish dignity is a heritage. In after years it is the genesis of that invaluable attribute, Self-respect. IV