Suddenly a hemorrhage of the lungs brought this mother to death"s door.
She had been, for a few years before her marriage, my pupil in my own house, and she used to say she owed to me all the happy views she had of G.o.d and Heaven, as well as of human life and death, and I was sent for in this extremity as a mother to a child.
Since her marriage she had lived in a city distant from me, and I had seen her but little. Her child was so very timid I had made no acquaintance with him in transient interviews, and of me he had no impression but of one little story that I had told him six months before when I met him at the house of her husband"s parents. This story I had half invented to explain a picture in the "Story without an end," that I was showing to him. (See Appendix.)
When I came to the mother"s bedside, she told me it was best for her to die, because she was utterly baffled in all her efforts to bring up her child. She went on to describe her timid methods; she said she feared he was _non compos_, for he made no progress. Among many phenomena, she mentioned that when she gave him playthings, he immediately broke them to pieces, and when she tried to prevent this, by endeavoring to make him understand their uses and construction, he would look drearily into her face and say, rather than ask, "What for?" He seemed deficient in will, without impulse, for, though flowers seemed rather to please him, if she took him into the garden and told him he might gather them, he would stand still, and helplessly cry; and she had to command him to do everything, even to play, before he would attempt it. He acted like an automaton. Moreover, he had no sensibility, and expressed no affection.
Just at this point of her dismal story her chamber door was opened by the nurse, with this great boy in her arms. He had his mother"s beautiful large brow and deep eyes, but with no speculation in them, and his whole figure was lifeless and so languid that the arms that had been about the nurse"s neck, slowly lost their curve when she put him down on his feet. But his look rested on me, who, with an inviting smile and gesture, held out my hand. Immediately the large eyes filled with intelligent light, and with a cry of joy he sprang towards me, climbed up into my lap, clasped his arms round my neck, nestled upon my bosom, and looking up with a joyful expression of confidence said, "Story--little boy--drop of water!" It was, as I have said, about half a year before, that I had lured him to me as he held off in timidity, by offering to show him the picture where the child, in the "Story without an end" is represented beside the brook, looking at a drop of water hanging from a leaf, "telling the little boy a story," as I said, to which he had answered "Story!" and I had gone on and invented a free paraphrase of the story given in the book, adapted to his infantile capacity, and when I had finished, he said, "Story again!" and I repeated it again and again, so imperative was his "story again!" and now he again said "Story," with a confiding pressure, as he leaned on me then, gazing at the picture on the book in my lap, giving me the conviction that he understood me. It was really, as I found subsequently, the only rational words that had ever been addressed to the child"s imagination.
"This does not look like want of sensibility, or _mens non compos_," I said to the mother. "I never saw anything like it before," she said, all tears. The ensuing silence was immediately broken by the child"s imperative repet.i.tion of the word "story!" I was too much affected by the mother"s emotion to remember or invent any story, but it was an early, warm spring day and the windows were open. The house stood on a bluff of the Merrimac, within sight of the Rapids; and the sound of the rushing waters came in upon our silence. I said, cheerfully, "Do you hear the water running?" to which he responded with a joyful "yes! what does it run for?" "Oh, because it is glad," I replied, and again he responded with a joyful and satisfied "yes," and after a moment asked, "Where is it running to?" "Oh, into the ocean, where all the rest of the waters are!" and again an emphatic "yes" expressed his satisfaction.
Perhaps he remembered that in the story I had told him of a drop of water it had ended with the drop falling off the leaf, and running away with its brothers and sisters, and falling into the ocean, out of which the sun had originally taken it. At any rate, he not only repeated his yes with the emphasis of satisfaction, but seemed to be thoughtful. I said, "Do you ever look out of the window and see the sun shine on the water, and all the little sparkles of light in the water?" "Yes," said he, joyfully, "what makes the sun shine on the water?" "Oh," said I, "it is because the sun loves the water." "Yes," said he, and began to embrace me in the most energetic manner.
It was too much for the poor mother, who absolutely wept aloud, whether with joy or sorrow she could not tell, as she afterwards said.
The sound of her weeping attracted his attention, and he sat up in my lap and turned his large eyes upon her as she lay in bed, and then upon me, with a look of concern and appeal. "See," said I, "poor mother. She is sick and sorry. She wants me to tell _her_ a story, and won"t you get down and go into the nursery and let me tell dear mother a story to make her feel better? Then I will come to you and tell you one."
With a cheerful "yes" he immediately got down and went into the nursery, but stopped at the door to say:--
"When you have told mother a story, won"t you come right in and tell me one?"
I said to the mother, "You see, my dear friend, that the child has mind enough, heart enough, and a moral nature. He can understand and feel sympathy; feels the symbolism of nature; and can obey a self-denying motive. No fatal harm has been done after all by your delay, but he needs now to know he has a Heavenly Father, fully to manifest all the powers of a human being. You must allow me to give him that name for the Love he feels within and without."
"Not quite yet," said she, "not until you come to stay, because he would ask me questions that I should not know how to answer. Children ask such terrible questions. I am afraid as soon as you name the Invisible G.o.d, he will be frightened. Don"t you know M. D. was afraid to stay in a room alone because of the omnipresence of G.o.d, which seemed to be an unimaginable horror to her?"
"I do not wonder," I replied. "Omnipresence of G.o.d! What was there in a child"s experience to interpret this Latin abstraction? I think it would have been quite another thing, considering who her earthly father was, had she been told that our Heavenly Father was all about her though she could not see Him with her eyes, but could feel Him giving her love and joy. I cannot but wonder that anybody around her should have talked to her in such abstractions."
"I am so unready in expression," she persisted, "and can so poorly express my thoughts and feelings, I am sure I should only do mischief if I should try to answer his questions, and I am sure he will go on asking them, for his mind seemed to wake up at once as soon as you began to talk to him. How different was that "yes" from the dreary "what for?"
with which he always received the very best explanations that I could make of the things he played with. That "what for?" was not an enquiry of intelligence, but an expression of utter want of perception, with no interest to hear a reply. It is best for him that I should die; then I shall ask his father to give him to you to bring up. n.o.body ought to have children but people of genius!"
"No, no," said I; "it does not require genius to talk with children, but only simplicity of heart trusted in. I interested him and gained a response, not because of genius, for I have none, but because I believe in him, and in myself, whose happiness is in loving, and that G.o.d has created us to love and commune with one another and Him. You have said yourself that he seemed to love flowers, though he was afraid to gather them, and that he loved to hear the street musicians. Beauty and music touch his sensibility. By saying that the waters run because they are glad, and the sun shines on and makes things beautiful because he loves them, I put his own conscious life into the music of waters and the light of the sun. He recognized the meaning of gladness and love because he himself felt glad and loving, which made a pre-existent possibility of recognizing the love and joy of the Creator that shine in those natural objects, because they are G.o.d"S own words of love addressed to His own image, who is capable of love and joy and knowledge of Him. If we talk to children in instinctive faith, they understand us. You have not done so because of your early misfortune that saddened your heart and took away your instinctive courage. Faith is the proper act of the heart (courage, you know, is a synonym of heartiness); the heart goes before the understanding in the process of life. Without heart one can do no justice to children in talking with them; with it, we awaken their minds and nurture their souls, and all our mistakes will be of small account beside the positive advantage of setting their minds in joyful motion "amidst this mighty sum of things forever speaking.""
"When you come to stay," was her rejoinder, "you can say to him what you please, for then you will be here to take care of his mind and answer his questions."
This was all I could gain at that moment, and I left her, to go to the child, who had several times opened the door and looked at me wistfully, with a silent appeal which was all the more proof of his quickened intelligence that he did not tease. His own desire to have a story had interpreted to him his mother"s need.
I have very little power of inventing a story, and to his demand for one I responded by taking from the bookshelves Miss Edgeworth"s first story of Frank, and began to read to him of Frank"s making a noise on the table and the conversation between him and his mother that ensued. But this did not suit my little one"s mood, which was a little exalted by his delight at seeing me, and having had his imagination touched by the beautiful language of nature that I had made intelligible to him. He pulled the book away, and asked me to tell him a story "out of your own self," as he said.
Thus urged, I began: "Once there was a little worm about as long as the nail of my thumb, and no larger round than a big darning-needle. This little worm lived in a little house that he had made for himself in the ground, just big enough to hold him, when he rolled himself up like a little ball with his head sticking out. There were no windows nor doors in his house, but one on top, which was his door to go in at, and his window to look out of. When he had made this house he was tired and crawled into it and curled himself up and went to sleep, and slept all night. In the morning the sun rose and spread his beams all over the world, and one of the bright sunbeams shone into the window of the little worm"s house and touched his eyes and waked him, and he popped up his head and looked out and saw it was very pleasant in the garden, and he thought he would go out. He squirmed himself up out of his hole, and because he had no feet he crept along the garden path. The warm beams of the sun put their arms all round his cold, little body and made it warm as could be, and the sunbeam went into his little mites of eyes, and filled him all full of light, and the songs of the birds went into his little mites of ears and filled him all up with music, and the sweet smell of hundreds of flowers went up that little mite of a nose and filled him up with their perfumes. And so that little worm went creeping along as glad as he could be that he was alive.
"Now in the house that stood in that garden lived a little boy about four years old; and when the morning came, the sunbeams had gone into the window of his nursery and waked him, and he was washed and dressed and had his breakfast of bread and milk, and then his mama took him to the door that led down the steps of the piazza into the garden, and told him he might go down the path and have a good run to make himself warm. So down he ran. But now if that little boy should put his strong foot on that dear little worm, it would break him all to pieces--"
"Oh, he shall not, he must not!" cried the child in a spasm of distress.
"Aunt Lizzie, don"t let him break the dear little worm to pieces!"
"No indeed," said I, "that little boy would not not do such a cruel thing for the world! He saw the little worm creeping along, so glad to be alive, and he ran on the other side of the path; and the little worm nibbled a little blade of gra.s.s, and drank a little dew for his breakfast, and then he felt tired, and went creeping back, full of good food, to the little hole that was his home, and curled himself up like a little ball and went to sleep."
"Now tell me that story all over again!" said the child.
I did so more than once at his entreaty, and always when I came to the possible catastrophe of crushing the worm, the same terror seemed to seize him, and he would cry out:--
"Oh, he must not, he shall not!" and I always tranquillized him again, and gratified his sense of justice by my a.s.surance of the little boy"s consideration of the little worm"s right to his life and happiness.
Of course, I told his mother of the effect of this story, and the evidence it gave of the child"s sound moral nature and innate sense of justice. And I begged her to let me lose no time in referring to the presence of the Heavenly Father, that the intuition of his heart might become the possession of his mind. I said I did not believe that he would ask any question. He would suppose that I alone knew, for, as I observed to her, he had never for the whole six months referred to the little boy with the drop of water, and yet had vividly remembered the whole story, as his greeting me had shown, and I had the proof of it, for I had just told it to him again at his request. I told her if I proved to be mistaken, and he should ask her any question she could not answer to her own satisfaction, she could say she would write to me and ask me, and I felt sure he would wait. But I told her I believed what I was thinking of saying to him would keep his thoughts busy while I was gone (for I was going only for a week to prepare for a stay with her for an indefinite time). At last I gained her consent, and the child was put into my bed, that I might have the conversation the first thing in the morning.
When I awoke, I found him awake, close by me, and his great eyes seemed to devour me.
"How long you did sleep!" said he; "I have been seeing you sleep."
Said I, "What do you see with?"
"My eyes," he replied, and to the questions, What do you hear, smell, taste, touch with? he made the appropriate answers.
"But what do you _love_ with?" I asked.
He jumped up upon his knees and crossed his arms on his breast, paused a moment wonderingly, and then exclaimed, "With my arms!" and throwing his arms round my neck, hugged me. I was taken a little aback, but in a moment said:--
"Have you a great deal of love?"
"Oh, a great deal, a great deal!" he exclaimed.
"Where is it? where do you keep it?" said I.
He started up again on his knees, again crossed his arms upon his breast, and said, "Where do I?"
Placing my hand on his heart, I said, "Is it not in there?"
His whole expression was affirmative, he looked delighted, but did not speak.
"Are you good?" said I.
"Sometimes," he said.
"What are you when you are not good?"
"I cry."
He had evidently been told it was naughty to cry.
I said, "Why are you not good all the time?"
"Why ain"t I?" said he, after a moment"s pause.
"Oh," said I, "I think you have not goodness enough to be good with all the time."
He looked a.s.sent, delighted and earnest. I answered his unuttered feeling with the question,--
"Should you like to have goodness enough to be good with all the time?"
"How can I?"