Before they went to bed that night, the Coopers looked in at their son, who was sleeping. "The boss knew what he was talking about, al- right," said Mr. Cooper. "He certainly did," echoed Mrs. C.
The next morning, Peter was informed at breakfast-which he at- tended dressed in a pastel colored robe that he would attend school as usual-dressed in his conventional clothes. With a great sigh of relief, he changed into his school clothes and ran off down the street. The whole affair had seemed like a nightmare; maybe now they would leave him alone. He maintained an exceptional, for him, standard of con- duct throughout most of the day. Since it was a Friday, however, sev- eral of his classmates were restless and soon he was joining them in creating minor diversions for the rest of the class.
He was surprised to see his mother waiting for him after classes were dismissed. With an expectant smile, she escorted him home-and re- peated the performance of the evening before, notwithstanding tears, exhortations and fervent promises to behave with the uttermost of decorum at every conceivable future point of time. To no avail, as mas- ter Peter soon found.
One might be tempted to speculate on the progress of this story if Mrs. Cooper and Mr. Cooper, for that matter, had acted with the same degree of firmness prior to this time of chastisement. However, it must be argued that hindsight is a great deal more dependable than foresight and twenty times as common.
After the first week had gone by, with Peter being allowed his right- ful clothing only for the occasion of attending classes, he had begun to rationalize his parent's behavior. In view of past efforts on his par- ents part, he felt sure that, like the many bans and removal of privi- leges effected against him in the past, the present state of affairs would not last very long.
It was Peter's fate, however, to be disappointed, for each evening until the end of the school term in the summer, his mother met him at the school door and escorted him home-and so on. Nor were week- ends any different as Peter found out; regardless of whoever might be present or expected, Peter was universally attired in dresses. He very nearly went out of his mind the first Sunday when his mother very calmly escorted him to church-a place where he was not very well known and so he was at least saved the additional agony of meeting any of his own acquaintances. However, Mrs. Cooper was well known
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