“Oh, I know that, Jane.  I’m not blamin’ him; he can’t help it.  But them who has the bringin’ up of him are at fault.  What do the Royals know about the trainin’ of a child?  Didn’t the only chick they ever had go wild, an’ him a parson’s son, too?  I went to school with Alec, an’ I tell ye they kept a tight rein on him.  I was sure that he’d be a parson like his dad.  But, no, sirree, jist as soon as he got his freedom, he kicked over the traces like a young colt, an’ went away.”

Rodney gave the neighbours numerous causes for criticism.  Unconsciously and boy-like, he did things which were often misconstrued as downright badness, whereas the boy had not the slightest intention of doing anything wrong.  He was simply natural, while many of his critical elders were most unnatural.  They had their own hide-bound rules of what was proper, so they found it impossible to enter into the child’s world, and look at things from his point of view.

One Sunday Rodney took a kitten with him to church.  The little pet was smuggled in beneath his coat.  So dearly did he love it that he could not bear to be parted with it during church time for fear that something would happen to it.  And, besides, he liked to have it with him, that he might cuddle it during the service, which to him was long and uninteresting.  There would have been no trouble if the kitten had been content to remain beneath its master’s coat.  But, alas, when the organ struck up for the first hymn, it began to wriggle vehemently in an effort to get its head out to see where the peculiar noise came from.  Rodney tried to keep it back and soothe its fears.  But all in vain, for the kitten suddenly slipped from his grasp, and sprang out into the aisle.  Rodney instantly darted after his pet, and seized it just as it was about to disappear beneath the pulpit steps.  Triumphantly he carried it back to the seat where Mrs. Royal was sitting.

To the latter it was only an amusing incident, as she understood the spirit in which it was done.  But to many in the church it was a most disgraceful thing, and formed a choice topic of conversation for the rest of the day in various households.  They could not, and in truth did not wish to remember the excellent sermon Parson Dan delivered that morning.  The picture of a little curly-headed boy speeding up the aisle after the kitten obscured everything else.

It was that very week when Rodney made his next break, which branded him as a red-handed criminal to several in the parish.  The Ladies’ Aid Society was meeting at the rectory on a beautiful afternoon.  There was a good attendance, and the members freely discussed many questions of vital interest.

The conversation at last drifted off to the training of children.  This was brought about most deftly by Mrs. Harmon, solely for Mrs. Royal’s benefit.  Mrs. Harmon had no children, and, as is generally the case, she considered herself a great authority as to how children should be managed.  There was no half-way measure in her system of training.  She knew, and that ended it.