The Mother CHAPTER 5.
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A Mother's Influence.
"There come the children from school," said Aunt Mary, looking from the window. "Just see that Clarence! He'll have Henry in the gutter. I never saw such a boy. Why can't he come quietly along like other children. There! — now he must stop to throw stones at the pigs. That boy will give you the heartache yet, Anna."
Mrs. Hartley made no reply, but laid aside her work quietly and left the room, to see that their dinner was ready. In a few minutes, the street door was thrown open, and the children came bounding in, full of life, and noisy as they could be.
"Where is your coat, Clarence?" she asked, in a pleasant tone, looking her oldest boy in the face.
"Oh, I forgot!" he replied cheerfully, and turning quickly, he ran downstairs, and lifting his coat from where, in his thoughtlessness, he had thrown it upon the floor, hung it up in its proper place, and then sprung up the stairs.
"Isn't dinner ready yet?" he said, with fretful impatience, his whole manner changing suddenly. "I'm hungry."
"It will be ready in a few minutes, Clarence."
"I want it now. I'm hungry."
"Did you ever hear of the man," said Mrs. Hartley, in a voice that showed no disturbance of mind, "who wanted the sun to rise an hour before its time?"
"No, mother. Tell me about it, won't you?"
All impatience had vanished from the boy's face.
"There was a man who had to go upon a journey. The coach was to call for him at sunrise. More than an hour before it was time for the sun to be up, the man was all ready to go, and for the whole of that hour he walked the floor impatiently, grumbling at the sun because he did not rise. 'I'm all ready, and I want to be going,' he said. 'It's time the sun was up, long ago.' Don't you think he was a very foolish man?"
Clarence laughed, and said he thought the man was very foolish indeed.
"Do you think he was more foolish than you were just now for grumbling because dinner wasn't ready?"
Clarence laughed again, and said he did not know. Just then Hannah, the cook, brought in the platter with the children's dinner upon it. Clarence sprang for a chair, and drew it hastily and noisily to the table.
"Try and see if you can't do that more orderly, my dear," his mother said, in a quiet voice, looking at him as she spoke, with a steady eye.
The boy removed his chair, and then replaced it gently.
"That is much better, my son."
And thus she corrected his disorderly habits, quieted his impatient temper, and checked his rudeness — without showing any disturbance. This she had to do daily. At almost every meal she found it necessary to repress his rude impatience. It was line upon line, and precept upon precept. But she never tired, and rarely permitted herself to show that she was disturbed, no matter how deeply grieved she was at times over the wild and reckless spirit of her boy.
On the next day, she was not very well. Her head ached badly all the morning. Hearing the children in the passage, when they came in from school at noon, she was rising from the bed where she had lain down, to attend to them, and give them their dinners, when Aunt Mary said,
"Don't get up, Anna. I will see to the children."
It was rarely that Mrs. Hartley let anyone do for them what she could do herself, for no one else could manage the unhappy temper of Clarence. But so violent was the pain in her head, that she let Aunt Mary go, and sunk back upon the pillow from which she had arisen. A good deal of noise and confusion continued to reach her ears, from the moment the children came in. At length a loud cry and passionate words from Clarence caused her to rise up quickly and go over to the dining room. All was confusion there, and Aunt Mary out of humor, and scolding prodigiously. Clarence was standing up at the table, looking defiance at her, on account of some interference with his strong self-will. The moment the boy saw his mother, his countenance changed, and a look of confusion took the place of anger.
"Come over to my room, Clarence," she said in a low voice; there was sadness in its tones, that made him feel sorry that he had given vent so freely to his ill temper.
"What was the matter, my son?" Mrs. Hartley asked, as soon as they were alone, taking Clarence by the hand, and looking steadily at him.
"Aunt Mary wouldn't help me when I asked her."
"Why not?"
"She would help Henry first."
"No doubt she had a reason for it. Do you know her reason?"
"She said he was youngest." Clarence pouted out his lips, and spoke in a very disagreeable tone.
"Don't you think that was a very good reason?"
"I've as good a right to be helped first as he has."
"Let us see if that is so. You and Marien and Henry came in from school, all hungry and anxious for your dinners. Marien is oldest — she, one would suppose, from the fact that she is oldest, would be better able to feel for her brothers, and be willing to see their needs supplied before her own. You are older than Henry, and should feel for him in the same way. No doubt this was Aunt Mary's reason for helping Henry first. Had she helped Marien?"
"No ma'am."
"Did Marien complain?"
"No ma'am."
"No one complained but my unhappy Clarence. Do you know why you complained? I can tell you, as I have often told you before. It is because you indulge in very selfish feelings. All who do so — make themselves miserable. If, instead of wanting Aunt Mary to help you first, you had, from a love of your little brother, been willing to see him first attended to — you would have enjoyed a real pleasure. If you had said — 'Aunt Mary, help Harry first,' I am sure Henry would have said instantly — 'No, Aunt Mary, help Clarence first.' How pleasant this would have been; how happy would all of us have felt at thus seeing two little brothers generously preferring one another."
There was an unusual degree of tenderness, even sadness in the voice of his mother, that affected Clarence. But he struggled with his feelings. When, however, she resumed, and said —
"I have felt quite sick all the morning. My head has ached badly — so badly that I have had to lie down. I always give you your dinners when you come home, and try to make you comfortable. Today I let Aunt Mary do it, because I felt so sick. But I am sorry that I did not get up, as sick as I was, and do it myself — then I might have prevented this unhappy outbreak of my boy's unruly temper, that has made not only my head ache ten times as badly as it did, but my heart ache also."
Clarence burst into tears, and throwing his arms around his mother's neck, wept bitterly.
"I will try and be good, dear mother!" he said. "I do try sometimes, but it seems that I can't."
"You must always try, my dear son. Now dry up your tears, and go out and get your dinner. Or, if you would rather I would go with you, I will do so."
"No, dear mother!" replied the boy, affectionately, "You are sick. You must not go. I will be good."
Clarence kissed his mother again, and then returned quietly to the dining room.
"Naughty boy!" said Aunt Mary, as he entered, looking sternly at him.
A bitter retort came instantly to the tongue of Clarence, but he checked himself with a strong effort, and took his place at the table. Instead of soothing the quick tempered boy, Aunt Mary chafed him by her words and manner during the whole meal, and it was only the image of his mother's tearful face, and the remembrance that she was sick, that restrained an outbreak of his passionate temper.
When Clarence left the table, he returned to his mother's room, and laid his head upon the pillow where her's was resting.
"I love you, mother," he said, affectionately. "You are good. But I hate Aunt Mary."
"O no, Clarence. You must not say that you hate Aunt Mary, for Aunt Mary is very kind to you. You must not hate anybody."
"She isn't kind to me, mother. She calls me a bad boy, and says everything to make me angry when I want to be good."
"Think, my son, if there is not some reason for Aunt Mary calling you a bad boy. You know, yourself, that you act very naughtily sometimes, and provoke Aunt Mary a great deal."
"But she said I was a naughty boy, when I went out just now; and I was sorry for what I had done, and wanted to be good."
"Aunt Mary didn't know that you were sorry, I am sure. When she called you 'naughty boy,' what did you say?"
"I was going to say, 'you're a fool!' but I didn't. I tried hard not to let my tongue say the bad words, though it wanted to."
"Why did you try not to say them?"
"Because it would have been wrong, and would have made you feel sorry. And I love you." Again the repentant boy kissed her. His eyes were full of tears, and so were the eyes of his mother.
While talking over this incident with her husband, Mrs. Hartley said,
"Were not all these impressions so light, I would feel encouraged. The boy has warm and tender feelings, but I fear that his passionate temper and selfishness will, like evil weeds, completely check their growth."
"The case is bad enough, Anna, but not so bad, I hope, as you fear. These good affections are never active in vain. They impress the mind with an indelible impression. In after years, the remembrance of them will revive the states they produced, and give strength to good desires and intentions. Amid all his irregularities, and wanderings from good, in after life — the thoughts of his mother will restore the feelings he had today, and draw him back from evil with chords of love which cannot be broken. The good now implanted will remain, and, like ten just men, save the city. In most instances where men abandon themselves finally to evil courses, it will be found that the impressions made in childhood were not of the right kind. That the mother's influence was not what it should have been. For myself, I am sure that a different mother would have made me a different man. When a boy, I was too much like Clarence; but the tenderness with which my mother always treated me, and the calm but earnest manner in which she reproved and corrected my faults, subdued my unruly temper. When I became restless or impatient, she always had a book to read to me, or a story to tell, or had some device to save me from myself. My father was neither harsh nor indulgent towards me; I cherish his memory with respect and love. But I have different feelings when I think of my mother. My father would place his hand upon my head, caressingly, but my mother would lay her cheek against mine. I did not expect my father to do more — I do not know that I would have loved him had he done more; for him it was a natural expression of affection. But no act is too tender for a mother. Her kiss upon my cheek, her warm embrace, are all felt now; and the older I grow the more holy seem the influences which surrounded me in childhood."
Today I cut from a newspaper some verses that pleased and affected me. I have brought them home. Let me read them to you.
"I Dreamed of My Mother." By Thomas Spear.
"I dreamed of my mother, and sweet to my soul,
Was the brief-given spell of that vision's control,
I thought she stood by me, all cheerful and mild,
As when to her bosom I clung as a child.
Her features were bright with the smiles that she wore.
When heeding my idle-tongued prattle of yore;
And her voice had that kindly and silvery strain,
That from childhood had dwelt in the depths of my brain.
She spoke of the days of her girlhood and youth —
Of life and its cares, and of hope and its truth;
And she seemed as an angel winged from above,
To bring me a message of duty and love.
She told of her thoughts at the old village school —
Of her walks with her playmates when loosed from its rule,
Of her rambles for berries; and when they were o'er,
Of the mirth-making groups at the white cottage door.
She painted the garden, so sweet to the view,
Where the wren made its nest, and the nice flowers grew —
Of the trees that she loved for their scent and their shade,
Where the robin, and wild-bee, and humming-bird played.
And she spoke of the greenwood which bordered the farm,
Where her glad moments glided unmixed with alarm;
Of the well by the wicket whose waters were free,
And the lake with its white margin traversed in glee.
And she pondered, delighted, the joys to retrace,
Of the family scenes of that ruralized place —
Of its parties and bridals, its loves and its spells,
Its heart-clinging ties, and its saddened farewells.
She pictured the meeting-house, where, with the throng.
She heard the good pastor and sang the sweet song —
Of the call from the pulpit — the feast at the shrine,
And the hallowed communings with feelings divine.
'And listen, my son,' she did smilingly say,
'If 'tis pleasant to sing, it is sweeter to pray —
If the future is bright in the day of your prime,
That brightness may grow with the fading of time.'
'Look up to your Maker, my son, and rejoice!'
Was the last gentle whisper that came from her voice.
While its soft, soothing tones on my dreaming ear fell,
As she glided away with a smiling farewell.
I awoke from the spell of that vision of night,
And heartily communed with a quiet delight.
And the past, and the present, and future surveyed,
In the darkness presented by fancy, arrayed.
I thought of the scenes when that mother was nigh,
In a soft sunny land, and beneath a mild sky,
When in bowers we walked to the health-giving spring.
With the dew on the grass and the birds on the wing —
Of the draughts at the fount as the bright sun arose,
And the views from the bluffs where the broad river flows,
Of the sound from the shore of the fisherman's train,
And the sight of the ship as it sailed to the main —
Of the wild flowers plucked from the glen and the field,
And the beauties the meadows and gardens revealed —
Of all that she paused to explain or explore,
Till I learned, in my wonder, to think and adore.
And of joys that attended the fireside scene,
When woodlands and meadows no longer were green —
Of the sports and the tales and the holiday glee,
That ever were rife at the fond mother's knee —
Of the duties of home, and the studies of school,
With the many delights that divided their rule,
Till the sunshine of boyhood had ended, and brought,
The cares and the shadows of manhood and thought.
And I sighed for the scenes that had faded away —
For the forms that had fallen from age to decay —
For the friends who had vanished, while looking before,
To paths that their feet were forbid to explore.
And glancing beyond, through the vista of time,
With a soul full of hope, and with life in its prime.
Though flowers by memory cherished had died,
Life's garden was still with some blossoms supplied.
And oft as that dream to my spirit comes back.
A newness of thought re-illumines my track."
"Pure and tender! The mother who called forth that heart-warm tribute was, doubtless, a good mother," said Anna.
"You remember Cowper's lines, written on receiving his mother's picture?" remarked her husband, after musing for a short time.
"O, yes. Very well. They have often affected me to tears!"
O that those lips had language! Life has passed,
But roughly with me, since I heard you last.
Those lips are your — your own sweet smile I see,
The same that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say,
'Grieve not, my child, chase all your fears away.'
"To him, how great was the loss he sustained in the death of his mother. Had she lived, the deep melancholy which seized him in after life, might never have occurred. With what simple eloquence he describes his loss." And Mr. Hartley repeated a passage of the poem.
My mother, when I learned that you were dead,
Say, were you conscious of the tears that I shed?
Hovered your spirit o'er your sorrowing son,
Wretched, e'en then, life's journey just begun?
Perhaps you gave me, though unfelt, a kiss;
Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss.
Ah, that maternal smile I it answers — Yes.
I heard the bell toll on your burial day,
I saw the hearse that bore you slow away,
And turning from my nursery window, drew
A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu!
But was it such? — It was. — Where you are gone
Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.
May I but meet you on that peaceful shore,
Your parting word shall pass my lips no more!
Your maidens grieved themselves at my concern,
Oft gave me promise of your quick return.
What ardently I wished, I long believed,
And disappointed still, was still deceived.
By expectation every day beguiled,
Dupe of tomorrow, even from a child.
Thus many a sad tomorrow came and went,
'Till all my stock of infant sorrow spent,
I learned at last submission to my lot,
And though I always love you, I'll ne'er forget.
Mrs. Hartley leaned her head upon her husband's shoulder, unable to restrain the tears that were springing to her eye.
"If God only spares me to my children — it is all I ask," she murmured. "I will be patient with and forbearing towards them. I will discharge my duties with unwearied diligence. Who can fill a mother's place? Alas! no one. If any voice had been as full of love for him when a child, if any hand had ministered to him as tenderly — this touching remembrance of his mother would never have been recorded by Cowper. Ah, who could be unkind to a motherless one?"
"The lot of an orphan child is not always as sad a one as must have been that of young Cowper," said Mr. Hartley, "for it is but rarely that a child possesses the delicate or rathermorbid sensibility which characterized him."
"I could not bear to think that any child of mine would remember me with less tenderness," replied Mrs. Hartley.
"To recur to what we were first talking about," said Mr. Hartley, after a pause. "There cannot be a doubt, that the whole life of the child is affected by the mother's character, and the influences which she has brought to bear upon him. I could point to many instances that have come under my own observation that illustrate this. The father of one of my schoolmates was a man of a highly cultivated mind, and polished manners; his mother was the reverse. The son is like the mother. As a man, he did not rise in society at all, and is now the keeper of a billiard saloon. In another instance, the father was a low minded man, and inclined to dissipation. Nearly the whole burden of the support of the family fell upon the mother; but her children always came to school neat and clean. Their behavior was good, and they studied with diligence. Only one of four sons turned out badly. Three of them are now merchants in good business, and the mother's declining years are blessed by their kindest attentions. You see, then, Anna, how much you have to encourageyou."
"If there was nothing to encourage me — love and duty would make me persevere."
"But there is much. Cast your bread upon the waters, and it shall be found after many days."
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