Once he made an attempt to emancipate himself and went to play with
the boys of the cottagers. They spent the day in the woods, climbed
the trees, robbed the birds' nests and threw stones at the squirrels.
Frithiof was as happy as a released prisoner, and did not come home to
dinner. The boys gathered whortle-berries, and bathed in the lake. It
was the first really enjoyable day of his life.
When he came home in the evening, he found the whole house in great
commotion. His mother though anxious and upset, did not conceal her
joy at his return; Aunt Agatha, however, a spinster, and his mother's
eldest sister, who ruled the house, was furious. She maintained that
it would be a positive crime not to punish him. Frithiof could not
understand why it should be a crime, but his aunt told him that
disobedience was a sin. He protested that he had never been forbidden
to play with the children of the cottagers. She admitted it but said
that, of course, there could never have been two questions about it.
And she remained firm, and regardless of his mother's pleading eyes,
took him away to give him a whipping in her own room. He was eight
years old and fairly big for his age.
When the aunt touched his waist-belt to unbutton his knickers, a cold
shiver ran down his back; he gasped and his heart thumped against his
ribs.
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