"Mrs. Grey's carriage," announced a servant.
"Oh, must you go so soon?" cried Mr. Thayer. "I am sure my wife needs
more counsel."
"Let me countermand the carriage. Do stay one night more. You may save
our children by doing it," urged Mrs. Thayer.
"I must send a telegram home if I stay."
"Certainly," said Mr. Thayer. "I will take it myself."
"Dear Mrs. Grey," said Mrs. Thayer, "I am so thankful to see you alone.
You have opened a new world to me in regard to prayer. Beyond praying
for my children night and morning, I have never consulted the Lord
about them. I have always acted on the impulse of the moment."
"We come to grief, sooner or later, if we do that."
"But I am naturally impulsive, and look before I leap. I _cannot_
always stop to think where I shall alight."
"If your watch is in good order, do you have to do more than wind it
up every night to insure its keeping good time? Now if your soul is in
a normal condition through the skill and goodness of God, and you do
your part towards keeping it so by prayer, be as impulsive as you like.
You'll keep good time."
"There is another trouble I have with Esther. She is too fond of dress."
"Most girls are. Their mothers teach them this by talking as if it
were a matter of great moment, and by giving them articles of dress as
holiday and birthday gifts, thus implying that this is the greatest
favor they can do them."
"I have done this, but thoughtlessly. It never occurred to me that I
was educating my girls into this folly."
She spoke in a weary voice, and at length added: "I am all out of
patience with myself. I don't see but that I lie at the bottom of most
of my children's faults."
"Fenelon tells us to be patient with ourselves, and he is right," Mrs.
Grey said, gently, and looking with sympathy at the poor mother's
flushed cheeks.
"And now about Julia," cried Mrs. Thayer. "She is naturally a nice
child; but she is copying all Esther's ways. And before I forget it,
I want to consult you about an incident that occurred just before you
came. Julia is very energetic, and one day, when I was out, undertook
to put my bureau in order. When I came in and found my room in an
uproar--the bed, the floors, the sofa covered with heterogeneous
masses of clothing--I was extremely displeased, and seized the child
by the arm and marched her angrily out of the room. Whereupon she
dropped a courtesy and said, 'Thank you, ma'am. You must have had a
nice prayer-meeting!' I afterwards found that she had been preparing a
pleasant surprise for me by putting my drawers in order. Ought I to say
anything to her about it?"
"Yes, you ought to ask her pardon."
"Ask her pardon! Ask a child's pardon!"
"Why not? She has her individual rights as you have yours."
"But to degrade myself to a child of ten years!"
"To ennoble yourself in her eyes. The degradation was in losing your
temper."
"Well--well--_well!_ This home has got to be pulled all to pieces and
built up again, if we are to follow your suggestions."
"Pull away," said Mrs. Grey, smiling; "the sooner the better. And now
won't you let me see the little nursery people?"
Mrs. Thayer's face cleared as she led the way to baby and his brother,
both large for their age.
"What splendid boys!" exclaimed Mrs. Grey.
"Are they not? And the others were just as fine, apparently."
Mrs. Grey took the baby from his nurse's arms and kissed it.
"I should think this room would be a city of refuge, with these
innocent creatures in it," she said.
"Yes; doesn't it _rest_ one to see little children before they are
spoiled?"
"You speak as if spoiling was inseparable from development; as if life
were intended to be all retrograde."
"Oh, I thought I should find you ladies here," said Mr. Thayer,
entering the room. "Suppose we adjourn to the library."
"Let me take Mrs. Grey to my room first, to see the children's
portraits."
Mr. Thayer assented, and they all proceeded thither.
Bob, Esther, and Julia had been grouped together and beautifully
painted by an artistic hand.
"I never saw a finer face than Bob's," said Mrs. Grey, "nor sweeter
ones than those of the girls; it is hard indeed to think such children
can turn out ill."
"Yes," said Mrs. Thayer, "I little thought when these portraits were
painted, how Bob was going to break my heart, and Esther refuse to
obey."
"Mrs. Grey," asked Mr. Thayer, abruptly, "do you think that children
properly trained, invariably turn out well?"
"There are exceptions to all rules. Some children seem to enter the
world with such low tendencies that no amount of wise training avails
to uplift them. But no case is hopeless that can be carried to God."
"I want to ask one question more. Do you find us, as parents,
exceptionally full of mistakes, and our children exceptionally bad?"
"I believe all parents make mistakes. They find out, sooner or later,
that they cannot, of themselves, train their children right, and so
cease making the experiment, and seek Divine guidance at every step.
I see no evidence that yours entered this world materially more
depraved than others. But whatever the case may be, you have no reason
for discouragement, if you can once make up your minds to distrust
yourselves and leave all to Him who giveth to all men liberally and
upbraideth not."
Thus with line upon line and precept upon precept, Mrs. Grey tried to
show to her eager listeners, that the first step towards reforming
their children was a thorough reform in their own lives. She then took
leave and gladly returned to her own peaceful home, where so many of
her own rules had long been put in practice. Margaret was awaiting her
in brilliant spirits, and everything settled down into the old routine;
the one busy with scores of interests beyond her own; the other living
in an imitation of her as yet remote, but yet original and unique.
Meanwhile Mr. and Mrs. Thayer found that it was no easy matter to
change habits formed through fourteen years, and still went on making
mistakes. Yet a radical change was taking place in their souls, which
the children soon began to feel and to comment on.
In the first place, Mr. Thayer began to speak to Bob with a kindly
yearning in his voice that startled and puzzled the boy. It was plain
that his resentment was over, and that he was feeling pity instead
of anger. What could it mean? Bob was full of curiosity and anxiety.
Did this tenderness portend some coming penalty of the law--perhaps?
Was he to be sent to a Reform school, or to jail, or what? His mother
changed too. Julia, between whom and himself a certain kind of intimacy
existed, took him aside one day, and said:
"Does mamma look sick to you?"
"She looks as if she cried a great deal."
"But does she look as if she was going to die?"
"To die!" he repeated.
"Yes, to die," said Julia.
What heart lay developed under the lad's vest died within him. This,
then, was the penalty that lay before him; his crime was to kill his
mother!
"Who says she's going to die?" he asked, roughly.
"No one says so, but I know she is. Read _that_."
Bob took the little note the child handed him, and read it in silence:
MY DEARLY LOVED JULIA:--
Not very long ago your energetic little hands undertook to arrange my
bureau drawers for me. Coming in suddenly I misunderstood the disorder
of my room, and drove you from it angrily. It was wrong; I am sorry
for it; I have asked God to forgive me, and now I ask you to forgive
your poor, faulty
MOTHER.
"I'll bet she _is_ going to die," said Bob. "Never knew her to do
anything like that before. I've been an awfully horrid fellow. I wish I
hadn't."
"I've been horrid, too," said Julia. "And _I_ wish I hadn't."
"You've been splendid compared with me," said Bob.
"Let's go and tell Esther," suggested Julia.
"What for? She won't care."
"You seem to think she's a heathen Chinee," said Julia.
"So she is, sometimes. But not always."
Esther was accordingly taken into confidence, and expressed a wish to
box their ears for a pair of ninnies, until she read the note, which
struck terror to her heart.
"I don't feel at all nice," she said. "Though I'm not as bad as many
girls. I know Mrs. Mather pays Melville five dollars a month if she
isn't saucy to her. And Jane Waite tells fibs. And Jemima Watson threw
her mother's watch on the floor and stamped on it."
"What for?"
"Because she couldn't get an example right. Julia, I wish you hadn't
shown me that note. It was real mean in you. You knew it would stick in
my throat."
Meanwhile Mrs. Thayer was looking forward with anxiety to the day of
Esther's proposed lunch party, and the storm that was to follow the
announcement that she should not sanction it. Great, therefore, was her
surprise when Esther came, voluntarily, to say, in a nonchalant way,
put on to hide some real feeling, that she had changed her mind, and
did not intend to invite the girls.
"I am very glad to hear it," was the reply, "for I did not intend to
provide lunch save for the family, as usual, and you would have had to
recall your invitations. Henceforth, when you wish for an indulgence of
this sort, come and ask my consent."
The quiet dignity and firmness with which this was said, impressed
Esther with such a sense of amazement that she was in no state to wage
war.
The family leaf was thus turned over without signs of affray; yet, He
who seeth in secret witnessed many a struggle with self and pride, and
evil habits on the part of the parents. It is not so easy to own that
one's whole theory of domestic life has been wrong; not a trifle to
drop all querulous tones, sharp reprimands, and hasty penalties. Again
and again they were tempted to try new theories; to imitate this and
that successful experimenter; to go on searching books and other human
counsel. But every such attempt ended in a failure, and at last they
went together hand in hand, confided all their interests to God, and
resolved henceforth to consult Him and Him alone in every emergency.
And now they found rest of the sweetest kind, and a new influence was
shed abroad in the house. It is simply impossible to live this life
of trust without influencing children powerfully. The young Thayers
were too young to be utterly spoiled, and gradually the new principles
that controlled the parents began to act upon them. Rome was not built
in a day, neither is a human character suddenly so formed. It took
time and patience to undo the work so ill-done; but the Holy Spirit
so often wooed was lovingly won. He came and brooded, like a peaceful
dove, over the disordered household. There is not a more upright man
in Wall Street than Robert Thayer. His character was ripened by the
discipline of labor through which he had to pass while earning the
means to restore the sum feloniously appropriated, and that one act
of dishonesty was his last. For parental prayer stood between him and
temptation; and through Heaven-taught wisdom his conscience is as
tender as a little child. Esther is living a peaceful life of faith in
a nursery of her own, and Julia's energies are legitimately spent in
true Christian work. As to the three younger children, they never gave
their parents, with all their natural depravity combined, an hour's
heart-ache; they were not models and not prigs, but just happy, bright,
lovable fellows who had heard very little about law, and a great deal
about the Gospel; who knew how to fish, and gun, and garden, and play,
and frolic, and also knew how to pray when the right time came. More
might be said, with truth, but it never answers to paint too close to
nature.
Those who do not understand the life of faith, fancy it to be all
mysticism and effeminacy. But while it is mystical to the mere
looker-on, to its possessor it is almost homely in its practical
details; touching every point of life from worship to service, from
service to worship, claiming the whole being for Christ, and spending
and being spent for those whom He came to redeem.