THE SOFA.
The boys took their places on the sofa, and afterwards laid their books
upon the table. After that Madam Rachel began to talk about the
occurrences of the day, as follows:--
"There are two or three things, boys, that I have been keeping to talk
with you about this evening. One is the question you asked, Dwight,
about Caleb's disobeying me, when he fell into the water."
"Yes, mother," said Dwight, looking up at once, very eagerly; "you told
him never to go near the bank; and yet he went, and so he fell in."
"But I could not help it," said Caleb.
"Why, yes, mother, he certainly could help it; for he walked there
himself of his own accord."
"Very well; that is the question for us to consider; but, first, we must
all be in a proper state of mind to consider it, or else it will do us
no good. Now, Dwight, I am going to ask you a question, and I want to
have you answer it honestly:--Which way do you wish to have this
question, about Caleb's disobedience, decided?"
"Why,--I don't know," said Dwight.
"Suppose I should come to the conclusion that Caleb did right, and
should prove it by arguments, should you feel a little glad, or a little
sorry?"
Dwight hung his head, and seemed somewhat confused, but said,
doubtfully, that he did not know.
"Now, I think, myself," said his mother, "that you have a secret wish to
have it appear that Caleb is guilty of disobedience. You said he
disobeyed, at first, from unkind feelings, which you seemed to feel
towards him at the moment; and now, I suppose, you wish to adhere to it,
so as to get the victory. Now, honestly, isn't it so?"
Dwight did not answer at first. He looked somewhat ashamed. Presently,
however, he concluded, that it was best to be frank and honest; so he
looked up and acknowledged that it was so.
"Yes," said his mother; "and while you are under the influence of such a
prejudice, it would do no good for us to discuss the subject, for you
would not be convinced; so you had better give it up."
Madam Rachel saw, while she was speaking, that Dwight did not look
sullen and dissatisfied, but good-natured and pleasant; and so she knew
that he had concluded to listen, candidly, to what she had to say.
"I think that Caleb was not to blame at all," said Madam Rachel, "for
two reasons. One is, that he was probably overwhelmed with terror. To be
sure, as you say, the cow did not push him. He walked himself,--yet
still he was _impelled_ as strongly as if he had been pushed, though in
a different manner."
"Then there is another reason why Caleb is innocent of any disobedience.
When I told him that he must not go to the high banks, I did not mean
that he _never_ must go, _in any case whatever_."
"I thought you _said_ he never must," said David.
"I presume I did say so, and I made no exceptions; but still some
exceptions are always _implied_ in such a case. In all commands, however
positive they may be, there is always some exception implied."
"Why, mother?" said Dwight with surprise.
"It is so," said his mother. "Suppose, for instance, that I were to tell
you to sit down by the parlour fire, and study a lesson, and not to get
out of your chair on any account. And suppose that, after I had gone
and left you, the fire should fall down, and some coals roll out upon
the floor, would it not be your duty to get up, and brush them back?"
"Why, yes," said Dwight.
"So in all cases, very extreme and extraordinary occurrences, that could
not, by possibility, have been considered, make exceptions. And Caleb,
thinking, as he did, that he was in great danger from the cow, if he had
thought of my command at all, he would have done perfectly right to have
considered so extraordinary a case an exception, and so have retreated
towards the brook, notwithstanding my commands. And now that question is
settled."
Here little Caleb, who had been sitting up very straight, and looking
eagerly at his grandmother and at the other boys, during the progress of
the conversation, drew a long breath, and leaned back against the sofa,
as if he felt a good deal relieved.
"And now, Dwight, there is one thing I have seen in you to-day, which
gave me a great deal of pleasure, and another which gave me pain."
"What, mother," said Dwight.
"Why, after I talked with you at noon, about teasing Caleb, you began to
treat him very kindly. That gave me a great deal of pleasure. I saw that
your heart was somewhat changed in regard to Caleb; for you seemed to
take pleasure in making him happy, while before you took delight in
making him miserable."
Dwight looked gratified and pleased while his mother was saying these
things.
"But then, in the course of the afternoon," she continued, "the old
malignant heart seemed to come back again. When I came down to see the
mole, I found you in such a state of mind as to take pleasure in Caleb's
suffering. You wanted to prove that he had told a lie, and looked
disappointed when I shewed you that he had not. Then you wanted to prove
he had disobeyed me, when, after all, you knew very well that he had
not."
"O, mother," said Dwight.
"Yes, Dwight, I am very sorry to have to say so; but you undoubtedly had
no real belief that Caleb had done wrong. Suppose I had told you I was
going to punish him for disobeying me in retreating to the brook, should
you have thought that it would have been right?"
"Why, no, mother," said Dwight.
"You would have been shocked at such an idea. And now don't you see that
all your attempts to prove that he had done wrong, was only the effect
of the ill-will you felt towards him at the time. It was malice
triumphing over your judgment and your sense of right and wrong. I told
you, you know, that your resolutions would not reach the case."
"Well, mother, I am _determined_," said Dwight, very deliberatively and
positively, "that I _never_ will tease or trouble Caleb any more."
"The evil is not so much in teasing and troubling Caleb, as in having a
heart capable of taking any pleasure in it. That is the great
difficulty."
"Well, mother, I am determined I never will feel any pleasure in his
trouble again."
"I am afraid that won't depend altogether upon the determination you
make. For instance, when you went to Caleb to-day, and kindly tried to
persuade him to go down, and offered to carry his rocking-chair for him,
your heart was then in a state of love towards him. Do you think you
could then, by determination, have changed it from love to hate, and
begun to take pleasure in teasing him?"
Dwight remembered how kindly and pleasantly he had felt towards Caleb at
that time, and he thought that it would have been impossible for him
then to have found any pleasure in tormenting him; and so he said, "No,
mother, I could not."
"And so, when you are angry with a person, and your heart is in a state
of ill-will and malice towards him, does it seem to you that you can
merely by a determination change it all at once, and begin to be filled
with love, so as to feel pleasure in his happiness?"
Dwight was silent at first; he presently answered, faintly, that he
could not.
"And if you cannot change your heart by your mere determination at the
time, you certainly cannot by making one general determination, now
beforehand, for all time to come."
Dwight saw his helpless condition, and sighed. After a pause, he said,
"Mother, it seems to me you are discouraging me from trying to be a
better boy."
"No, Dwight; but I don't want you to depend on false hopes that must
only end in your disappointment. Your determination will help in not
indulging the bad feelings; but I want to have your heart changed so
that you could not possibly _have_ such feelings. I hope mine is. I
once shewed the same spirit that you do; but now I don't think it would
be possible for me to take any pleasure in teasing Caleb, or you, or
David.
"I hope," added Madam Rachel, "that God will give you a benevolent and
tender heart, so that there shall be no _tendency_ in you to do wrong.
He will change yours, if you pray to him to do it. In fact, I hope, and
sometimes I almost believe, that he has begun. I do not think you would
have gone to Caleb to-day so pleasantly, and acknowledged your fault, as
you did by your actions, and felt so totally different from what you had
done, if God had not wrought some change in you. I have very often
talked with children about such faults, as plainly and kindly as I did
with you, and it produced no effect. When they went away, I found, by
their looks and actions afterwards, that their hearts were not changed
at all. And so, Dwight," said she, "I have not been saying this to
discourage you, but to make you feel that you need a greater change than
you can accomplish, and so to lead you to God that you may throw
yourself upon him, and ask him, not merely to help you in your
determinations not to act out your bad feelings, but to change the very
nature of them, or rather, to carry on the change, which I hope he has
begun."
Dwight remembered, while his mother was talking, how full his heart had
been of kindness and love to Caleb, while he was helping him that
afternoon, and he perceived clearly that he had not produced that state
of mind by any of his own determinations that he would feel so before he
actually did. He remembered how happy he had been at that time, and how
discontented and miserable after he had been troubling Caleb; and he had
a feeling of strong desire that God would change his heart, and make him
altogether and always benevolent and kind.
Now, it happened that Caleb had not understood this conversation very
well, and he began to be weary and uneasy. Besides just about this time
he began to recollect something about his grandmother's beginning a
story for him, when she took him up in her lap, after he came in from
the mole. So, when he noticed that there was a pause in the
conversation, he said,
"Grandmother, you promised to tell me a story about blind Samuel."
"So I did," said his grandmother smiling, "and I began it; but before I
got through you got fast asleep."
David and Dwight laughed, and so in fact did Caleb; and Madam Rachel
then said that if he would tell David and Dwight the story as far as she
had gone, she would finish it.
"Well," said Caleb, "I will. Once there was a blind boy, and his name
was Samuel; and, you see, he was going through the woods, and his father
was with him. And his father walked along, and he walked along, and it
was stony, and he said he would do just what his father said, because
his father knew best,--and--and so he took hold of the string again."
"What string?" said Dwight.
"Why, it was his father's string," said Caleb, eagerly, looking up into
Dwight's face.
"What did he have a string for?" said David.
"Why to lead him along by," said Caleb.
"Yes--but why did not he take hold of his father's hand?" asked Dwight.
"Why,--why,--there was a snake in the road, I believe,--wasn't there,
grandmother?"
His grandmother smiled,--for Caleb had evidently got bewildered, in his
drowsiness, so that he had not a very distinct recollection of the
story. She, therefore, began again, and told the whole. When she got to
the place where she left off before, that is, to the place Samuel heard
a splash in the water, Dwight started up, and asked, eagerly,
"What was it?"
"A stone, I suppose," said David, coolly.
"No," said Madam Rachel, "it was only the end of the stem of a small
tree, which Samuel's father was trying to fix across the brook, so that
he could lead his blind boy over. It was lying upon the ground, and he
took it and raised it upon its end, near the edge of the bank, on one
side, and then let it fall over, in hopes that the other end would fall
upon the opposite bank. But it did not happen to fall straight across,
and so the end fell into the water, and this was the noise that Samuel
heard.
"He drew the stick back again, and then contrived to raise it on its end
once more; and this time he was more successful. It fell across, and so
extended from bank to bank. In a few minutes he succeeded in getting
another by its side, and then he came back to Samuel.
"'Samuel,' said he, 'I have built a bridge.'
"'A bridge!' said Samuel.
"'Yes,' said he, 'a sort of a bridge; and now I am going to try to lead
you over.'
"'But, father, I am afraid.'
"'You said you would trust yourself entirely to me, and go wherever I
should say.'
"'Well, father,' said Samuel, 'I will. You know best, after all.'
"So Samuel took hold of his father's hand, and, with slow, and very
careful steps, he got over the roaring torrent, and then they soon came
out into a broad smooth road, and so got safely home."
"Now, Caleb," continued Madam Rachel, after she had finished her story,
"do you remember what I meant to teach you by this story?"
"Yes, Grandmother; you said that I was like blind Samuel, and that God
knew what was best for me, and that I must let him lead me wherever he
pleases."
"Yes; and what was it that you said that reminded me to tell you the
story?"
"I said that I wished that I was well and strong, like the other boys."
"Yes," said his grandmother, "I do not think you said it in a fretful or
impatient spirit; but I thought that this story of Samuel would help to
keep you patient and contented."
"Yes, grandmother, it does," said Caleb.