But if any child misbehaved itself, it was sometimes sent next Sunday to church with me, on the theory that my companionship would have a sedative effect--which it did, as I and the child walked along with rather constrained politeness, each eying the other with watchful readiness for the unexpected.

On one occasion, when the child's conduct fell just short of warranting such extreme measures, his mother, as they were on the point of entering church, concluded a homily by a quotation which showed a certain haziness of memory concerning the marriage and baptismal services: "No, little boy, if this conduct continues, I shall think that you neither love, honor, nor obey me!" However, the culprit was much impressed with a sense of shortcoming as to the obligations he had undertaken; so the result was as satisfactory as if the quotation had been from the right service.
As for the education of the children, there was of course much of it that represented downright hard work and drudgery.

There was also much training that came as a by-product and was perhaps almost as valuable--not as a substitute but as an addition.

After their supper, the children, when little, would come trotting up to their mother's room to be read to, and it was always a surprise to me to notice the extremely varied reading which interested them, from Howard Pyle's "Robin Hood," Mary Alicia Owen's "Voodoo Tales," and Joel Chandler Harris's "Aaron in the Wild Woods," to "Lycides" and "King John." If their mother was absent, I would try to act as vice-mother--a poor substitute, I fear--superintending the supper and reading aloud afterwards.

The children did not wish me to read the books they desired their mother to read, and I usually took some such book as "Hereward the Wake," or "Guy Mannering," or "The Last of the Mohicans" or else some story about a man-eating tiger, or a man-eating lion, from one of the hunting books in my library.