Lafe fumbled the buttons on his pants. He finished just as his father rounded the corner of the barn.

"What you doing, boy?" his father yelled. He strode to him and hit him hard on the buttocks. "I catch you doing that again and I'll whip you like you'll remember till the day you die!"

Lafe looked him straight in the eye.

"You get in that house and you read two chapters of your mother's Bible before supper and you read them good. I expect to hear all about them while we're eating."