"Mary, didn"t your mother tell you not to go to her basket?"
"Yes, sir," replied Mary, looking steadily into her uncle"s face.
"Then why did you go?"
"I don"t know."
"It was very wrong." Uncle William spoke seriously, and the child"s face a.s.sumed a serious expression.
"Will you do it any more?"
"No, sir." Mary shrink close to her uncle, and her reply was in a whisper.
"Be sure and not forget, Mary. Mother sews with her spools of cotton, and uses her scissors to make little Mary frocks and ap.r.o.ns, and if Mary takes any thing out of her work-basket, she can"t do her sewing good. Will you remember?"
"Yes, sir."
"Now don"t forget."
"No, sir."
"And just see, Mary, how you have soiled the carpet with the dredging-box! Didn"t you know the flour would come out and be scattered all over the floor?"
"No, sir."
"But now you know it."
"Yes, sir."
"You won"t get the dredging-box any more?"
"No, sir."
While this conversation was going on, Mrs. Elder came down, still feeling much excited. After Uncle William had said what he considered enough to Mary, he took up his book and commenced reading. The child stood leaning against him for five or ten minutes, and then ran out of the room.
"How long do you suppose she will remember what you have said?"
remarked Mrs. Elder, with a lightness of tone that showed her contempt for all such measures of reform.
"Much longer than she will remember your box on the ear," was the blunt reply.
"I doubt it. Words make no impression on children."
"Harsh words make very little impression, I admit. For these close up, instead of entering the avenues to the mind. Kind words, and reasons for things, go a great way even with children. How long did Mary remember and profit by your sound rating and box on the ear (still red with the blow) into the bargain? Not over ten minutes; for when I came down-stairs, she had both hands into your basket again."
"The little huzzy! It"s well for her that I did not catch her at it!"
"It is well indeed, Sarah, for you would, by your angry and unjust punishment, have done the little creature a serious injury. Did you ever explain to her the use of your work-basket and the various things in it, and make her comprehend how necessary it was to you to have every thing in order there, just as you placed it?"
"Gracious, William! Do you think I haven"t something else to do besides wasting time in explaining to children the use of every thing in my work-basket? What good would it do, I wonder?"
"It would do a great deal of good, Sarah, you may rely upon it, and be a great saving of time into the bargain; for if you made your children properly comprehend the use of every thing around them, and how their meddling with certain things was wrong, because it would incommode you, you would find them far less disposed than now to put their hands into wrong places. Try it."
"Nonsense! I wonder if I haven"t been trying all my life to make them understand that they were not to meddle with things that didn"t belong to them! And what good has it done?"
"Very little, I must own; for I never saw children who had less regard to what their mother says than yours have."
This touched Mrs. Elder a little. She didn"t mind animadverting upon the defects of her children, but was ready to stand up in their defence whenever any one else found fault with them.
"I reckon they are not the worst children in the world," she replied, rather warmly.
"I should be sorry if they were. But they are not the best either, by a long way, although naturally as good children as are seen anywhere. It is your bad management that is spoiling them."
"My management!"
"Frankly, Sarah, I am compelled to affirm that it is. I have been in your house, now, for three or four months, and must say that I am surprised that your children are as good as they are. Don"t be angry! Don"t be fretted with me as you are with every thing in them that doesn"t please you. I am old enough to hear reason as well as to talk reason. Let us go back to a point on which I wished to fix your attention, but from which we digressed. In trying to correct Mary"s habit of rummaging in your work-basket, you boxed her ears, and stormed at her in a most unmotherly way. Did it do any good? No; for in ten minutes she was at the same work again. For this I talked to her kindly, and endeavoured to make her sensible that it was wrong to disturb your basket."
"And much good it will do!" Mrs. Elder did not feel very amiable.
"We shall see," said Uncle William, in his calm way. "Now I propose that we both go out of this room, and let Mary come into it, and be here alone for half an hour. My word for it, she doesn"t touch your work-basket."
"And my word for it, she goes to it the first thing."
"Notwithstanding you boxed her ears for the same fault so recently?"
"Yes, and notwithstanding you reasoned with her, and talked to her so softly but a few moments since."
"Very well. The experiment is worth making, not to see who is right, but to see if a gentler mode of government than the one you have adopted will not be much better for your children. I am sure that it will."
As proposed, the mother and Uncle William left the room, and Mary was allowed to go into it and remain there alone for half an hour.
Long before this time had expired, Mrs. Elder"s excited feelings had cooled off, and been succeeded by a more sober and reflective state of mind. At the end of the proposed period, Uncle William came down, and joining his sister, said--
"Now, Sarah, let us go and see what Mary has been doing; but before we enter the room, let me beg of you not to show angry displeasure, nor to speak a harsh or loud word to Mary, no matter what she may have been about; for it will do no good, but harm. You have tried it long enough, and its ill effects call upon you to make a new experiment."
Mrs. Elder, who was in a better state than she was half an hour before, readily agreed to this. They then went together into the room. As they entered, Mary looked up at them from the floor where she was, sitting, her face bright with smiles at seeing them.
"You lit"--
Uncle William grasped quickly the hand of his sister to remind her that she was not to speak harshly to Mary, no matter what she was doing, and was thus able to check the storm of angry reproof that was about to break upon the head of the child, who had been up to the book-case and taken, therefrom two rows of books, with which she was playing on the floor.
"What are you doing, dear?" asked Uncle William, kindly.
"Building a house," replied the child, the smiles that the sudden change in the mother"s countenance had driven from her face, coming back and lighting up her beautiful young brow. "See here what a pretty house I have, uncle! And here is the fence, and these are trees."
"So it is, a very pretty house," replied the uncle, while the mother could scarcely repress her indignation at the outrage Mary had committed upon the book-case.
The uncle glanced toward the table, upon which the work-basket remained undisturbed. He then sat down, and said--"Come here, love."
Mary got up and ran quickly to him.