I have spoken of some of the good things Susy's little servants could
do, and I am sorry to have to say that she sometimes let them do naughty
ones.
The first thing was while she was still a baby, when she raised her hand
to slap her dear, kind mamma because she was going to wash her. Little
babies often do so before they have been taught better. The moment
Susy's hand had given the slap, she saw that her mamma's face became
grave and displeased. Then Susy was sorry, and she made haste to kiss
the place she had hurt, and the tears rolled down her cheeks. But pretty
soon, when something else vexed her, she lifted her little hand, and was
going to strike with it. Her mamma caught it in hers, and looked at it
gravely, and said: "Naughty little hand!" Then Susy began to cry again
and she cried so much that her mamma had to lend her her handkerchief to
wipe away her tears. Almost every day the little hand was naughty in
this way, but at last Susy's mamma cured it, by always tying a red
mitten on it whenever it slapped. It did not like to wear a mitten at
all, because then it could not pick up its toys so well.
After Susy had learned not to strike, her little hands began to grow
meddlesome, that is, to touch and take things they should not have
touched. One day they tore the newspaper all to pieces. Once they cut
off all her hair, as far as they could reach it. One of them got into
the sugar-bowl and took three lumps of sugar. And once, when they were
in the country, and there was a wash-stand in the room, Susy tried to
open the drawer, and pulled the wash-stand over, broke the pitcher,
spilled the water, and frightened every body very much indeed.
All these things made a deal of trouble. Susy's mamma had to keep all
the time teaching her that she must not do so. It took her a great while
to teach Susy that there were some things she must not touch.
And when the busy little hands began to learn what they were taught,
then the little feet began to get into trouble. One day before Susy was
old enough to go up and down stairs by herself, her mamma had visitors,
and Susy kept talking and talking at such a rate that at last nobody
else could be heard. So her mamma took her into the hall and seated her
on the lowest stair, where Susy was fond of sitting, and said to her:
"My little Susy must sit here a while because she does not mind mamma
and stop talking." Pretty soon she heard a little voice cry out, "Mamma!
aren't you afraid your little girl will fall down stairs?" and on
running to see what that meant, there was Susy sitting on the top stair,
smiling and looking very happy to think she had played such a trick. And
not long after, the two truant feet carried Susy out into the street,
among the carts and horses, and if God had not taken care of her, she
would certainty have been killed. And another time Susy climbed up and
was just going to put one foot out of the window, when her mamma caught
her by her dress, and pulled her back. I suppose you did just such
things when you were a baby, and your mamma might amuse you by telling
you about it.
[Illustration]
Susy was not so mischievous as some children are, and when she was
three years old, and had learned what she might do, and what she must
not, her mamma could leave her all alone in the parlor, with a few toys,
and be quite sure that she would touch nothing she had been forbidden to
touch, nor climb up into dangerous places, nor take any dangerous thing.
The scissors might lie on the table, and the sharp knife open by her
side; the good little hands would not touch them. Nor would the
obedient little feet now take Susy near the fire where she could so
easily have been burned. If Susy _promised_ to do a thing, she always
did it, and so her mamma often let her play by herself in the parlor,
when up in the nursery Robbie had not yet learned not to get away all
her toys.