Nathan lay back in the hammock in the summer-evening depths of the front piazza and dreamed dreams with his eyes open. Down the street old man Bailey’s phonograph was grinding out a squeaky program of popular ballads. The moths were clustering around the sputtering arc lamps. On the near-by corner the Allen girl was shamelessly “flirting with a feller” who sat on his bicycle alongside the curb, one foot upon it to steady himself. Occasionally the girl tested the bell on the handle bars, and it ding-donged a high and low musical note interspersed with low laughter. The flirtation hurt Nathan. He was jealous of the older fellow’s freedom from “careful” parents. “On’y seven years more—just seven years!—then I can marry her,” the poor young colt told himself. “Marry her whether Pa’ll let me or not. Oh, Bernie, Bernie, I love you. I love you more than anything else in the world! You’ll never understand!” It was only half-past seven o’clock and yet his father appeared and ordered him in to bed. “Look here, you young pup,” the man intercepted as Nat drearily obeyed, “—what’s this nonsense I’m hearing about you traipsin’ around behind some girl? Do you?” “N-N-No, sir!” “I don’t believe you!—Else folks around town wouldn’t be talking. If you lie to me I’ll lay on the strap. Now who is the girl and what about her? Answer me quick, or it’ll be worse for you!” “I don’t know what you mean!” A shrill cry of pain followed as the man twisted the boy’s ear. “Answer me!” he thundered. “B-B-Bernice Gridley,” Nat confessed. “Well—you let me lay down a law right here and now! No son of mine is going to make a young jackass of himself—or ruin his life—by getting mixed up with any girl before he’s old enough to know his own mind! You put girls out of your mind once and for all, the same as when we lived over in Foxboro you were told to put the baby business out of your mind! You hear me? Don’t you ever be seen on the street with a girl. Don’t you ever speak to one excepting when you’re absolutely obliged to—on strictly business! Don’t you ever let me hear of you goin’ to any party where there’s girls—while as for loving or kissing ’em—my God, I’ll skin you alive if I find you up to any such looseness and wickedness. You promise that here and now—before me and before God—and may God damn your disobedient young soul if you go back on your promise.” Nathan was aghast. Johnathan tortured the boy until he got his promise out. This was a Thursday evening. The church bells were droning idly in the soft summer dusk. Having heard young Nathan climb sobbing into his creaking bed (while other boys were still playing “Duck on the Rock” out under the Adams Street arc light) Johnathan Forge went to prayer meeting. There he made his ten-minute weekly testimony about how precious Jesus had been to his soul since the previous Thursday and how he—Johnathan—prayed in all things to be guided by the Father’s loving care.