"O, that is not the way. I never _interrupt_ my father if I want to ask him any thing."
"Suppose he is busy, and you want to know that very minute; what do you do?"
"I will show you. Come with me and I will ask him to let me stay with you to-day."
So Lucy and Rollo walked in. When they came to the parlor door, they saw that their parents were sitting on the sofa, talking about other things.
Rollo stopped at the door, but Lucy went in gently. She walked up to her father"s side, and stood there still.
Her father took no notice of her at first, but went on talking with Rollo"s father. Lucy stood very patiently until, after a few minutes, her father stopped talking, and said,
"Lucy, my dear, do you want to speak to me?"
"Yes, sir," said Lucy, "I wanted to ask you if you were willing to let me stay here to-day and play with Rollo, if you do not go to the mountain."
"I do not know," said her father, hesitating, and patting Lucy on the head--"that is a new idea; however, I believe I have no objection."
Lucy ran back joyfully to Rollo, and after a short time, her father went home. Rollo, however, did not feel in any better humor, and all Lucy"s endeavors to engage him in some amus.e.m.e.nt, failed. She proposed building with bricks, or going up into his little room, and drawing pictures on their slates, or getting his storybooks out and reading stories, and various other things, but Rollo would not be pleased.
Rollo ought, now, when he found that he must be disappointed about his ride, to have immediately banished it from his mind altogether, and turned his thoughts to other pleasures; but like all ill-humored people, he _would_ keep thinking and talking, all the time, about the thing which caused his ill-humor. So he sat in a large back entry, where he and Lucy were, looking out at the door, and saying a great many ill-natured things about the weather, and his father"s giving up the ride just for a little sprinkling of rain that would not last half an hour. He said it was a shame, too, for it to rain that day, just because he was going to ride.
Just then, his father spoke to him from the window, and called him in.
He and Lucy went in together into the parlor.
"Rollo," said his father, "did you know you were doing very wrong?"
Rollo felt a little guilty, but he said rather faintly, "No, sir, I was not doing any thing."
"You are committing a great many sins, all at once."
Rollo was silent. He knew his father meant sins of the heart.
"Your heart is in a very wicked state. You are under the dominion of some of the worst of feelings; you are self-conceited, ungrateful, undutiful, unjust, selfish, and," he added in a lower and more solemn tone, "even impious."
Rollo thought that these were heavy charges to bring upon him; but his father spoke calmly and kindly, and he knew that he could easily show that what he said was true.
"You are _self-conceited_--vainly imagining that you, a little boy of seven years old, can judge better than your father and mother, and obstinately persisting in your opinion that it is not going to rain, when the rain has actually commenced, and is falling faster and faster.
You are _ungrateful_, to speak reproachfully of me, and give me pain, by your ill-will, when I have been planning this excursion, in a great degree, for your enjoyment, and only give it up because I am absolutely compelled to do it by a storm; _undutiful_, in showing such a repining, unsubmissive spirit towards your father; _unjust_ in making Lucy and all of us suffer, because you are unwilling to submit to these circ.u.mstances that we cannot control; _selfish_, in being unwilling that it should rain and interfere with your ride, when you know that rain is so much wanted in all the fields, all over the country; and, what is worse than all, _impious_, in openly rebelling against G.o.d, and censuring the arrangements of his providence, and pretending to think that they are made just to trouble you."
When he had said this, he paused to hear what Rollo would say. He thought that if he was convinced of his sin, and really penitent, he would acknowledge that he was wrong, or at least be silent;--but that if, on the other hand, he were still unsubdued, he would go to making excuses.
After a moment"s pause, Rollo said,--"I did not know that there was need of rain in the fields."
"Did not you?" said his father. "Did not you know that the ground was very dry, and that, unless we have rain soon, the crops will suffer very much?"
"No, sir," said Rollo.
"It is so," said his father; "and this rain, which you are so unwilling to have descend, is going down into the ground all over the country, and into the roots of all the plants growing in the fields, carrying in the nourishment which will swell out all the corn and grain, and apples and pears. In a few days there will be thousands and thousands of dollars"
worth of fruit and food more than there would have been without this rain; and yet you are very unwilling to have it come, because you want to go and get a few blueberries!"
Rollo was confounded, and had not a word to say.
"Now, Rollo," continued his father, "all the rest of us are disposed to be good-humored, and to acquiesce in G.o.d"s decision, and try to have a happy day at home; and we cannot have it spoiled by your wicked repinings. So you must go away by yourself, until you feel willing to submit pleasantly and with good humor. Then you may come back, but be sure not to come back before."
REPENTANCE.
Now there was in Rollo"s house a small back garret, over a part of the kitchen chamber, which had one small window in it, looking out into the garden. This garret was not used, and Rollo"s father had put a little rocking-chair there, and a small table with a Bible on it, and hung some old maps about it, so as to make it as pleasant a little place as he could; and there he used to send Rollo when he had done any thing very wrong, or when he was sullen and ill natured, that he might reflect in solitude, and either return a good boy, or else stay where his bad feelings would not trouble or injure others. His father had put in marks, too, at several places in the Bible, where he thought it would be well for him to read at such times; as he said that reading suitable pa.s.sages in the Bible would be more likely to bring him to repentance, than any other book.
Rollo knew that when his father told him to go away by himself, he meant for him to go into this back garret. So he turned round and walked out of the room. As he pa.s.sed up the back stairs, the kitten came frisking around him, but he had no heart to play with her, and walked on. He then turned and went up the narrow, steep stairs that led to the garret; they were rather more like a ladder than like stairs. Rollo ascended them, and then sat down in the little rocking-chair. The rain was beating against the windows, and pattering on the roof which was just over his head.
It is sometimes but a little thing which turns the whole current of the thoughts and feelings. In Rollo"s case, at this time, it was but a drop of water. For after having sat some time in his chair, his heart remaining pretty nearly the same, a drop of water, which, somehow or other, contrived to get through some crevice in the boards and shingles over his head, fell exactly into the back of his neck. The first feeling it occasioned was an additional emotion of impatience and fretfulness.
But he next began to think how unreasonable and wicked it was to make all that difficulty, just because his father was preventing his going out to stay all day in the rain, when a single drop falling upon him vexed and irritated him.
He also looked out of the window towards the garden, and the dry ground, and all the trees and garden vegetables seemed to be drinking in the rain with delight. That made him think of the vast amount of good the rain was doing, and he saw his own selfishness in a striking point of view. In a word Rollo was now beginning to be really penitent. The tears came into his eyes; but they were tears of real sorrow for sin, not of vexation and anger.
He took up his little Bible, to read one of the pa.s.sages, as his father had advised him. He happened to open at a mark which his father had put in at the parable of the prodigal son. The first verse which his eye fell upon, was the verse, "I will arise and go to my father." Rollo thought that that was exactly the thing for him to do--to go and confess his fault to his father.
So he laid down his little Bible, wiped the tears from his eyes, and went down stairs. He met his father in the entry. He went up to him, and took his hand, and said,
"Father, I am really very sorry I have been so naughty; I _will try_ to be a good boy now."
His father stooped down and kissed him. "I am very glad to hear it, Rollo," said he. "Now you may go and find Lucy. I believe she is up in your mother"s chamber."
Rollo went off quite happy in pursuit of Lucy. He found her sitting on a cricket in his mother"s room, looking over a little picture-book. Rollo ran laughing up to her, and said,
"What have you got, Lucy?"
"One of your little picture-books. Will you lend it to me to carry home?"
Rollo said he would, and then they began to talk about what they should do. It rained very fast, and they could not go out of doors; and, after proposing several things, which, however, neither of them seemed to like, they turned to Rollo"s mother, and asked her what they had better do.
"I always find," said his mother, "that when I am disappointed of any pleasure, it is best not to try to find any other pleasure in its place, but to turn to _duty_."
The children did not understand this very well, and they were silent.
"What I mean," she continued, "is this: When we have just been disappointed of any pleasure which we had set our hearts upon, it is very difficult to find any thing else that we can have in its place, that will look as pleasant as the one we had lost. You see that you are not satisfied with any thing you propose to one another. Now, I find that the best way, in such cases, is to give up pleasure altogether, and turn to some duty; and after performing the duty a short time, peace and satisfaction return to the mind again, and we get over the effects of the disappointment in the quickest and pleasantest way."
Rollo and Lucy looked at one another rather soberly. They did not seem to know what to say.
"I presume, however, you will not do this," continued his mother.
"Why?" said Rollo.
"Because," said his mother, "it requires a good deal of resolution, at first, to turn to _duty_ when you have just been setting your heart on _pleasure_."
"O, we have got resolution enough," said Rollo.