Instead of going to the house when he got home, Nicholas went directly to the barn and began his after school chores, still think-ing of desperate defenses or ways out of his predicament. But when he went to fetch the pail to feed the chickens he could not help but see the razor strop his pa kept hanging on a hook for occasions just such as this one. Then it hit him. Take the of-fensive, throw yourself on the mercy of the court, admit it, take your punishment, say you're sorry, you lost all sense tem---------------porarily. So, when he had finished his chores, he steeled himself to this strategy, and marched resolutely up to the house.
"Pa! Ma!" he yelled with as much bravado as he could muster. "I'm home!" He carefully set the note on the table by the door. Then he found his mother in the kitchen preparing a roasting chicken for supper. "Where's pa?"
"Probably out in the barn, I suppose. With you gettin' home so late tonight he might be at your chores, young man."
"No, I already did them," Nicholas replied proudly. "And I didn't see him in the barn or out in the yard."
"Well, then, maybe he's mending fence down by the pasture. What news you got that can't wait till supper?" she asked, look-ing at him with that inquisitive smile that meant it was time to get away. "Somethin' happened at the school today, did it?"
"Yes'm," was all she got for an answer before he darted back through the front room, grabbing the note on his way out. He was halfway down to the pasture with his father in sight before he remembered he had left his pages of copying out in plain sight. But he kept on his way, committed to the strategy he had worked out.
"Pa," he announced as he walked up to help put some pressure on the wire pull, "Mr. Gradoske says we need to have a man-to-man talk."
"Oh, he does, does he?" He fastened the wire down to the post and freed the puller. "And just what might that talk be about?" he asked, playing directly into Nicholas's opening.
Nicholas held forth the note, his hand visi-bly shaking. Then he stood there, silent, and watched his father's face as he read the note:
"Dear Mr. & Mrs. Springer: At recess today one of our girl pupils happened to come across your Nicholas out in the grove, behind a bush, with his pants dropped, masturbating himself. Shocked would be understating the case for the poor pupil who found him. He has fully admitted to the case so I have suspended him two days, assigned him 1,000 lines of copying, and given him a very hard licking. He will need a note from you to return. Such behavior simply cannot be tolerated at school from anyone. If you wish to discuss this, please call on me at your con-venience." Your Obedient Servant, Robert Gradoske
"Is this true, boy? Your teacher says you were jerking yourself off in the woods at recess and got caught by one of the girls."
"Yes, sir, it's true," Nicholas said. "I did it. I'm ashamed of myself, but I did do it and I should be punished for it, sir. I'm really sorry. It WON'T happen again. Honest! And I'm writing that one thousand times to make sure I never forget."
"She says here you got a good lickin'. Is that so?"
"Yes, sir. She give me a good hard whippin', pants down."
"You remember what I told you, if you ever got a lickin' at the school?"
"Yes, sir. You'd take my pants down and give me a second helping on top of the first." Nicholas hesitated only a moment before playing what he hoped would be the trump card of this strategy. "I'll go up to the barn and get the strap out, pa, and wait for you behind the woodshed. I did it and I'm ready to take my punishment." Nicholas looked, hoping to see some glimmer of a reprieve, even if temporary.
"That can wait till after supper, son. But I think first we need to have that talk we should have had some time ago, it appears."
"Yes, sir." Nicholas fought the smile which tried to crease his face. It worked! It worked! At least the initial fury has been somewhat defused.
"But make no mistake, son," his father continued. "I intend to keep my word about acting up at school. You're going to have a lesson with the strap you won't soon forget. You understand me?"
"Yes, sir."
"Now let's hear how you tell this one."
"Well, sometimes I get these really strange feelings. And sometimes I get a lump in my pants when my peter gets hard and I rub it and it feels real good. So today this is happening in school this morning and I . . . I was . . . embarrassed and afraid someone would see and make fun." Nicholas lied as smoothly as he knew how. "Cause sometimes the girls make fun of me, especially those from town. So the only way I knew to be sure I wouldn't be embarrassed was to give it a rub and I went way out into the grove and hid in the bushes and did it." His father was still listening. "But some dumb girl followed me out there and then went to tattletale on me."
"But you took your pants down to do it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why?"
"Because I was afraid of making a spot on my pants which would have been just as bad."
"These feelings, son, are a normal part of growing up, but you just can't do what you did when you get them. This should be a very, very private and personal matter. And when that poor girl did see you, think what she must have thought. Doesn't matter whether she's a tattle or not, or anything else. And your teacher had no choice either. Part of growing up is to learn to control yourself, especially in public. And life brings some hard times for people who can't learn that."
"Yes, sir."
"So she licked you pretty hard, did she?"
"Yes, sir," Nicholas answered.
"Show me, boy."
Nicholas turned his back to his pa, tugged his britches down and bent forward, hands on his knees.
"I guess she did," he said, impressed with the crosshatch of welts and dark lines which gave testimony to the whipping he'd gotten hours earlier.
Nicholas pulled his pants up. His father walked to him and pulled him into a powerful hug.
"Well, we have to see what your mother says about all this, and we can talk about it later after supper. You have a reprieve for now, but I still have to keep my word about a tanning."
"Yes, sir," Nicholas said. _d_a_m_n_, he thought to himself, _d_a_m_n_, _d_a_m_n_, _d_a_m_n_!
Together they walked back up to the barn to put away the tools, then to the house for supper. Nicholas's father gave the note from school to his mother and then went out to the pump in the yard to wash up. Nicholas slipped into his chair at the kitchen table and watched his mother's face out of the corner of his eye. She seemed to slump down against the sink before she refolded the note and set it on counter. When his father returned from washing, his mother brought the hot dishes to the table and they joined in the usual table prayer.
"Not a good day at school today, was it son?"
"No, ma'am," he replied, his plate still empty. He wasn't hungry.
"That note says you got a lickin' at school. That so?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"And it says you did something should never be seen in public. That right?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"That's all you can say? 'Yes, ma'am'?! I think you'd better come up with some explaining, young man, if you don't want a second lickin' on top of the first. Let's hear your side of this story."
"Like I told pa, I just get these feelings some times and was afraid the kids would be teasing me if I was walking around with this lump in my britches. I swear Billie just watches to see anything he can to snitch to the rest of the class. So I sneaked off and hid at lunch recess to do something about it and that dumb ol' girl stumbles along and the next thing you know, I'm behind the woodshed and Mr. Gradoske is laying into me. I admit it. I did it. But there was a good reason and I tried to be secret, I really did. And I got punished for it."
"Well, son," his mother said slowly and quietly without looking at him, "_s_e_x_ual feelings aren't wrong, you know: it's just how you handle them and what you do about them. It's just all part of growing up. Maybe we should have had a talk or two before this. But one thing you do have to know is that private things are just that, private. What you do in your own home or your own place is one thing, what you do out in public is another. Mind I'm not saying it's all right to play with yourself whenever you like at home, but never, never do anything out in public or with a girl. You understand what I mean?"
"Yes, ma'am. And it won't ever happen again; not after what happened today. I had no idea she'd come along. And then tell on me, too!"
"You won't get caught if you don't do it, boy," his father replied. "And I was young once, too, you know. I know how powerful those urges can be. You can do some-thing about them when you have to but always in complete privacy and at home. I can remember my own mama once catching me at it and whaling me good."
"Yes, sir. If there's nothing really wrong with it then why all the secrecy?"
"Because that's the way it is, son. _s_e_x_ is best saved for marriage like it says in the Bible, but even then you take care to be very private about it. It's something very personal you don't go sharing or flaunting around or it loses its joy and excitement."
"So as long as it's secret and no one knows, it's ok."
"Something like that, yes," his mother said. "That's what the problem was today. That poor girl probably like to have died when she came on you and saw what you were doing. Until they