Home Scenes and Home Influence Part 6

Anna smiled.

"You did not sell them?"

"Yes."

"Why, Anna! Did you set no value on your husband's gifts?"

There was a slight rebuke in the tone of Brainard. Tears sprang to Anna's eyes, as she answered--"I valued them less than his happiness."

Brainard looked at her for a few moments with an expression of deep tenderness. Then turning to me, he said, in a voice that was unsteady from emotion--"You shall be my judge. Has she done wrong or right?"

"Right!" I responded, warmly. "Right! thank Heaven, my friend, for giving you a true woman for a wife. There is some hope now of your finding the comfort you sought so vainly in the beginning."

And he has found it--found it in a wise appropriation, of the good gifts of Providence according to his means.

CHILDREN--A FAMILY SCENE.

"MOTHER!"

"As I was saying"--

"Mother!"

"Miss Jones wore a white figured satin"--

"Oh! mother!"

"With short sleeves"--

"Mother! mother!"

"Looped up with a small rosebud"--

"I say! mother! mother!"

The child now caught hold of her mother's arm, and shook it violently, in her effort to gain the attention she desired, while her voice, which at first was low, had become loud and impatient.

Mrs. Elder, no longer able to continue her account of the manner in which Miss Jones appeared at a recent ball, turned angrily toward little Mary, whose importunities had sadly annoyed her, and, seizing her by the arm, took her to the door and thrust her roughly from the room, without any inquiry as to what she wanted. The child screamed for a while at the door, and then went crying up-stairs.

"Do what you will," said Mrs. Elder, fretfully, "you cannot teach children manners. I've talked to Mary a hundred times about interrupting me when I'm engaged in conversation with any one."

"It's line upon line and precept upon precept," remarked the visitor. "Children are children, and we mustn't expect too much from them."

"But I see other people's children sit down quietly and behave themselves when there is company."

"All children are not alike," said the visitor. "Some are more restless and impetuous than others. We have to consult their dispositions and pay regard thereto, or it will be impossible to manage them rightly. I find a great difference among my own children. Some are orderly, and others disorderly. Some have a strong sense of propriety, and others no sense of propriety at all."

"It's a great responsibility; is it not, Mrs. Peters?"

"Very great."

"It makes me really unhappy. I am sometimes tempted to wish them all in heaven; and then I would be sure they were well off and well taken care of. Some people appear to get along with their children so easy. I don't know how it is. I can't."

Mrs. Peters could have given her friend a useful hint or two on the subject of managing children, if she had felt that she dared to do so. But she knew Mrs. Elder to be exceedingly sensitive, and therefore she thought it best not to say any thing that might offend her.

There was a quiet-looking old gentleman in the room where the two ladies sat conversing. He had a book in his hand, and seemed to be reading; though, in fact, he was observing all that was said and done. He had not designed to do this, but the interruption of little Mary threw his mind off his book, and his thoughts entered a new element. This person was a brother of Mrs. Elder, and had recently become domesticated in her family. He was a bachelor.

After the visitor had retired, Mrs. Elder sat down to her work-table in the same room where she had received her company, and resumed her sewing operations, which the call had suspended. She had not been thus engaged long, before Mary came back into the room, looking sad enough. Instead of going to her mother; she went up to the old gentleman, and looking into his face with her yet tearful eyes, said--

"Uncle William?"

"What, dear?" was returned in a kind voice.

"Something sticks my neck. Won't you see what it is?"

Uncle William laid down his book, and, turning down the neck of Mary's frock, found that the point of a pin was fretting her body.

There was at least a dozen little scratches, and an inflamed spot the size of a dollar.

"Poor child!" he said, tenderly, as he removed the pin. "There now!

It feels better, doesn't it?"

"Yes, it feels better; thank you, dear uncle!" and Mary put up her sweet lips and kissed him. The old gentleman was doubly repaid for his trouble. Mary ran lightly away, and he resumed his book.

In about ten minutes, the child opened the door and came in pulling the dredging-box, to which she had tied a string, along the floor, and marking the progress she made by a track of white meal.

"You little torment!" exclaimed the mother, springing up, and jerking the string and box angrily from Mary's hand. "It is too bad!

you know well enough that you had no business to touch this. Just see what a condition the floor is in! Oh dear! Shall I never teach the child any thing?"

Mrs. Elder took the dredging-box out into the kitchen, and gave the cook a sound scolding for permitting the child to have it. When she got back, Mary had her work-basket on the floor, rummaging through it for b.u.t.tons and spools of cotton.

"Now just see that!" she exclaimed again. "There now!" And little Mary's ears buzzed for half an hour afterwards from the sound box she received.

After the child was thrust from the room, Mrs. Elder said, fretfully, "I'm out of all heart! I never saw such children. They seem ever bent on doing something wrong. Hark! what's that?"

There was the crash of something falling over head, followed by a loud scream.

Uncle William and Mrs. Elder both started from the room and ran up-stairs. Here they found Henry, a boy two years older than Mary, who was between three and four, lying on the carpet with a bureau drawer upon him, which he had, while turning topsy-turvy after something or other, accidentally pulled out upon him. He was more frightened than hurt, by a great deal.

"Now just look at that!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the outraged mother when the cause of alarm became apparent. "Just look at that, will you? Isn't it beyond all endurance! Haven't I told you a hundred times not to go near my drawers, ha? No matter if you'd been half killed! There, march out of the room as quick as you can go." And she seized Henry by the arm with a strong grip, and fairly threw him, in her anger, from the chamber.

While she was yet storming, fretting, and fuming over the drawer, Uncle William retired from the apartment and, went down-stairs again. On entering the room he had left but a few minutes before, he found Mary at her mother's work-basket again, notwithstanding the box she had received only a short time before for the same fault.

"Mary," said Uncle William to the child, in a calm, earnest, yet kind voice.

The child took its hands from the basket and came up to her uncle.