"Keep it, of course," answered Mrs. Omdorff; "Barker will never be the wiser. He makes enough out of us, dear knows." And she rolled the ribbon about her fingers.
Karl was a little surprised. It did not seem like his mother, nor in accordance with what she had often said to him about truth and honesty, but he had faith in her, and was sure that she could do nothing wrong. His Aunt Ruth, of whom he was very fond, and who had great influence over him, was a weak woman in some respects, and much more inclined to take the current of other"s opinions than to give herself the trouble of opposition. Her innate sense of honor was a little disturbed at her sister"s views of the case; but she failed to say the right words which were in her thoughts, and which, if spoken, might have helped the boy to see what was just and right.
A day or two afterward, Karl heard his mother say: "I saved a car ticket this morning."
"How?" inquired her sister.
"The conductor forgot to ask for it."
"Why didn"t you give it to him, mamma?" asked Karl.
"It was his business to look after his pa.s.sengers," replied Mrs.
Omdorff, who felt rather uncomfortable at this question from her little boy. "It will teach him a lesson."
Karl thought a moment, and then said: "But he won"t know anything about it."
"Oh, you"re too sharp!" exclaimed his mother, with a laugh. "I wasn"t talking to you, anyhow."
"Little pitchers have big ears," said Aunt Ruth, echoing her sister"s laugh.
And so the matter was pushed aside, neither mother nor aunt imagining that the bright and beautiful boy they both loved so tenderly had received a lesson in dishonesty not soon to be forgotten.
"I do believe," said Mrs. Omdorff, not long afterward, as she sat counting over some money, "that Poole has given me the wrong change."
Karl was in the room and heard her remark.
"Let me see," she added, going over the money again. "Two and a half, three, four and three-quarters. It"s a fact; I gave him a ten-dollar bill, and here are four and three-quarters change."
"What did the goods amount to?" asked her sister.
"There were eleven yards of muslin at eighteen; that"s a dollar and ninety-eight cents. Two yards of silk at a dollar and a half, and an eighth of a yard of velvet one dollar--making just five dollars and ninety-eight cents. If it had come to six dollars, my right change would have been four; but he has given me four and three-quarters."
Then, in a tone of satisfaction, she added: "I"m that much richer, you see, Ruth."
Her sister smiled, but did not utter the disapproval that was in her heart. Karl listened and took all in. A little while afterward Mrs.
Omdorff got up and rang the bell, saying, as she did so, with a short gurgling laugh, that seemed ashamed of itself: "I guess we"ll have a little ice-cream--at Poole"s expense."
Aunt Ruth shook her finger, and said feebly: "Oh, that"s too bad!" But Karl was not able to see whether she approved or disapproved. The ice-cream was sent for, and enjoyed by the child. While the sweet taste was yet on his tongue, he heard his mother say: "I"m very much obliged to Poole for his treat--it"s delicious."
Is it strange that the boy"s perception of right and wrong should be obscured? or that, in a day or two afterward, he should come in from the street with an orange in his hand, and, on being questioned about it, reply: "A woman let it drop from her basket, and I picked it up.
She didn"t see it drop, mamma."
"But why didn"t you call after her?" asked Aunt Ruth.
""Cause I didn"t want to," answered the child. "She dropped it. I didn"t knock it off."
Mrs. Omdorff was not satisfied with the conduct of her child; and yet she was amused at what she called his cuteness, and laughed instead of reproving him for an act that was in spirit a theft.
So the child"s education for crime was begun--his ruin initiated. The low moral sense of his mother was perpetually showing itself in some disregard for others" rights. A mistake made in her favor was never voluntarily corrected, and her pleasure at any gain of this kind was rarely concealed. "He cheated himself," was a favorite saying, heard by Karl almost every week; and as he grew older he understood its meaning more clearly.
Mr. Omdorff was a man of higher integrity than his wife and just in dealing to the smallest fraction. "Foolish about little things--more nice than wise," as she often said, when he disapproved of her way of doing things, as was sometimes the case. Mrs. Omdorff had learned to be guarded in her speech when he was at home; and so he remained in ignorance of the fatal perversions going on in the mind of his child.
As the boy grew up his father"s supervision became more direct. He was careful about his a.s.sociates, and never permitted him to be away from home without knowing where and with whom he was. He knew but too well the danger of evil a.s.sociation; and guarded his boy with jealous solicitude.
Alas! he dreamed not of the evil influences at home; never imagined that the mother was destroying in her son that nice sense of honor without which no one is safe; nor that she had taught him to disregard the rights of others, to take mean advantages, and to appropriate what did not belong to him whenever it could be done with absolute certainty of concealment.
We do not mean to say that such were the direct and purposed teachings of his mother. She would have been horror stricken at the mere suggestion. But she had so taught him by example. In heart she was not honest; and in many of her transactions she was as much a thief as if she had robbed a till. Retaining what belongs to another, simply because it has come into our hands by mistake, is as much a theft in its spirit as purposed stealing; and the fine lady who keeps the change to which she is not ent.i.tled, or the yard of ribbon measured to her in error, is just as criminal, as the sneak-thief who gets into her hall through a neglected door and steals her husband"s overcoat.
The real quality of an act lies in the intent.
Is it any wonder that amid such home influences the boy did not show, as he advanced toward maturity, a high sense of honor? That he should be mean and selfish and dishonest in little things? "As the twig is bent the tree is inclined." Evil seed will produce evil fruit.
Society punished and execrated the unhappy young man, and pitied his wretched mother, little dreaming that by her hand his prison doors had been opened.
Another instance of the baneful influence that may exist at home is to be found in the ruin of a young man who recently died in one of the lowest and vilest haunts of the city. He had been well educated, and grew to manhood with a fine sense of honor. His mother was a woman of rare culture, and beloved by every one in the circle where she moved.
All the moral sentiments of her son had been carefully fostered and developed, and when he reached manhood no one showed a fairer promise.
But it was not long before a shadow fell across his life. He had learned one thing at home that was destined to work his ruin--he had learned to love the taste of wine.
His father belonged to a cla.s.s of men who considered wine drinking a mark of good breeding. He knew all about wines, and had a weak vanity in being thought a connoisseur. If he had a friend to dinner, he would bring out two or three kinds, and discuss them through half the meal.
He called the men who were ranging themselves against the terrible evil of intemperance, and seeking to stay its baleful course, "poor fanatics." He talked of pure wines and liquors as harmless, and gave them to his son at suitable times and occasions, _moderately_; only guarding him by warnings against excess.
But these warnings went for nothing as appet.i.te increased. At twelve years of age the boy was content with a single gla.s.s of light wine at his dinner; at eighteen he wanted two gla.s.ses, and at twenty-one three. By this time he had acquired convivial habits, and often drank freely with other young men of his age. His mother was the first to take the alarm; but his father was slow to believe that his son was in danger. The sad truth broke upon him at last in a painful humiliation.
At a large party in his own house the young man became so badly intoxicated that he had to be removed from the company.
From that unhappy period wine was banished from the father"s table.
But it was too late! The work of ruin had progressed too far. At twenty-seven the wretched young man died, as we have said, in one of the lowest and vilest dens of the city.
We could give many instances like this. Here, at home, is the chief source of that wide-spread ruin by intemperance, that is every year robbing society of thousands of young men, who, by education, culture, and social standing are fitted for useful and honorable positions.
They are ruined at home. Not in one case in ten does a young man acquire the taste for drink in a saloon or tavern, but at home--if not in his own home, in that of some friend. We fear that the drinking saloons men set up in their drawing-rooms, and to which they invite the young and old of both s.e.xes, do more to deprave the taste and lead to intemperance than all the licensed taverns in the land. It is here that the appet.i.te is formed and fostered--here that the apprenticeship to drunkenness is served. Year by year the sons of our wealthiest and most intelligent and influential citizens are tempted and led astray by the drinking customs of society--ruined at home.
How few of the sons of successful men rise to the level their fathers have gained. How many, alas! sink so far below this level that the eyes ache to look down upon them!
GOOD-BYE--G.o.d BLESS YOU!
I love the words--perhaps because When I was leaving mother, Standing at last in solemn pause, We looked at one another; And I--I saw in mother"s eyes The love she could not tell me, A love eternal as the skies, Whatever fate befell me.
She put her arms about my neck, And soothed the pain of leaving, And though her heart was like to break, She spoke no word of grieving; She let no tear bedim her eye, For fear that might distress me; But, kissing me, she said good-bye, And asked our G.o.d to bless me.
HOW IT WAS BLOTTED OUT
For many years I had been a follower of strange G.o.ds, and a lover of this world and its vanities. I was self-righteous, and thought I had religion of my own which was better than that of the Bible. I did not know G.o.d, and did not serve him. Prayer was forgotten, public worship neglected; and worldly morality was the tree which brought forth its own deceptive fruit.
But when I shared parental responsibility, and our boy was growing up, our love for him made us anxious about his welfare and future career.
His questions often puzzled me, and the sweet and earnest manner in which he inquired of his poor sinful father to know more about his Heavenly Father, and that "happy land, far, far away," of which his nurse had taught him, proved to me that G.o.d had given me a great blessing in the child.