T. Arthur Engard

The Spoiled Child T. Arthur Engard

"The Spoiled Child" is a beautifully crafted story set in early 19th century New England. A single mother is at her wit's end trying to deal with an increasingly tyranical little boy. The child's outrageously bad behavior becomes even more terrible as the Christmas Season approaches. On the Eve of St. Nicholas Day, December 5th, the child has been sent to his room where he pounds on the door and screams that he hates his mother and that he will leave and never come back. A chill descends on the child's room and a shiver from the shadows produces a man dressed in black, horns protruding through the hood and wreath on his head, and a pack of switches on his back. It is Black Peter, a creature of Dutch folklore from the Middle Ages.

Black Peter captures the spoiled child and spirits him to a family far away. The child, Jonathan, begins a new chapter in his life amidst a poor family on a rocky northern coast.