"Jason, apologize to your father at once."
"I couldn't accept an apology now," said the minister. "I shall have to pray to get my mind into shape. In the meantime Jason shall be punished for this. Not until everyone in the town who desires to read his _Harper's Monthlies_ has done so, can Jason touch them."
"O father, not that," cried Jason. "I'll apologize! I'll wear the pants! Why, it would be Christmas before I'd see them again!"
"I can't accept your apology now. Neither your spirit nor mine is right. And I cannot retract. Your punishment must stand."
Jason was all child now. "Mother," he cried, "don't let him! Don't let him!"
Mrs. Wilkins' lips quivered. For a moment she could not speak. Then with an inscrutable look into her husband's eyes she said:
"You must obey your father, Jason. You have been very wicked."
Jason put down his candle and sobbed. "I know it. But I'll be good. Let me have my magazines. They're mine. I paid for them."
"No!" roared the minister. "Go to bed, sir, and see to it that you pray for a better heart."
Jason's sobs sounded through the little house long after his father and mother had gone to bed. The minister sighed and turned restlessly.
"Why was I given such a rebellious son, do you suppose?" he asked finally.
"Perhaps God hopes it'll make you have a better understanding of children," replied Mrs. Wilkins. "Christ said that unless you became like one of them you could not enter the kingdom."
There was another silence with Jason's sobs growing fainter, then, "But he was wicked, Mary, and he deserved punishment."
"But not such a punishment. Of course, I had to support you, no matter what I thought. But O Ethan, Ethan, it's so easy to kill the fineness in a proud and sensitive heart like Jason's."
"Nevertheless," returned the minister, "when he spurns the giving hand of God, forgiveness is God's, not mine. We'll discuss it no more."
Nor was the matter discussed again. Jason appeared at breakfast, with dark rings about his eyes, after having done his chores, as usual. Once, it seemed to his mother that he looked at her with a gaze half wondering, half hurt, as if she had failed him when his trust and need had been greatest. But he said nothing and she hoped that her mind had suggested what was in her aching heart and that Jason's was only a child's hurt that would soon heal.