WHAT DAGO TOLD THE MIRROR-MONKEY ON SUNDAY.
As soon as Elsie was put back to bed, Doctor Tremont came into the
room where I was still trying to comfort Phil, for I had skipped back
to him when they started up the stairs. Stirring the fire in the grate
until it blazed brightly, he turned to look at Phil. There was a long
silence; then he said, "Phil, come here, my boy. Come and sit on my
knee by the fire. I want to talk to you awhile."
His voice was so kind and gentle that it seemed to me nobody could
have been afraid of him then, but Phil climbed out of bed very slowly,
as if he did not want to obey. Wrapping him in a warm, fleecy blanket,
the doctor drew him over to a big rocking-chair in front of the fire,
and sat down with him on his knee. I crawled back to my cushion on the
hearth.
For a little while there was nothing said. The old chair crooned a
comforting lullaby of _creakity-creak_, _creakity-creak_, as the
doctor rocked back and forth, with the boy's curly head on his
shoulder. At last he said: "You think that I am unkind, Phil, because
I want to send your pet away, and cruel because I punished you for
speaking rudely to your Aunt Patricia. Now, I am going to tell you her
story, and maybe you will understand her better. The truth is, you do
not understand your Aunt Patricia, or why many of the little things
you do should annoy her. I want you to put yourself in her place as
near as you can, and see how differently you will look at things from
her standpoint.
"She was the only child in a houseful of grown people, and growing up
among prim elderly persons made her orderly and exact in everything
she did. When she was a very little girl she was sent to a strict,
old-fashioned school every morning, where she learned to work samplers
as well as to read and spell. They used to tell that, at the age of
seven, she came home one day with two prizes which she had taken. One
was for scholarship, and one was for neatness in her needlework.
When she brought them home, her grandmother (that is your
great-great-grandmother, you know) praised her for the first; but her
grandfather (the one whose portrait Stuart shot) said: 'Nay, it is for
the neatness that the little lass should be most commended, for it is
ever a pleasing virtue in a woman.' Then he gave her a gold dollar, to
encourage her in always being neat and exact. She was so proud of it
that nothing could have persuaded her to spend it. She had a hole
bored in it so that she could hang it on a ribbon around her neck. For
a long, long time she wore it that way. She has often said to me that
the sight of it was a daily reminder of what her grandfather wanted
her to be, and that it helped her to form those habits of orderliness
and neatness in which her family took such pride. Long after she
stopped wearing the little coin, the sight of it used to recall the
old proverbs that she heard so often, such as '"A stitch in time saves
nine," Patricia,' or, 'Remember, my dear, "have a place for
everything, and everything in its place."' It used to remind her of
the praise they gave her, too. Her grandfather's 'Well done, my good
little lass,' was a reward that made her happy for hours.
"Her room was always in perfect order. Even her toys were never left
scattered about the house. She has her old doll packed away now, in
lavender, in nearly as good condition as when it was given to her,
sixty years ago. You can see how anything would annoy her that would
break in on these lifelong habits of hers. She was a child that took
great pleasure in her little keepsakes, and the longer she owned them
the dearer they became. She kept that little gold coin, that her
grandfather gave her, for over half a century; and that is the dollar
that Dago lost. Do you wonder that she grieved over the loss of it?
"The old blue china dragon is one of her earliest recollections. It
used to sit on a cabinet in her grandmother's room, and there were
always sugar-plums in it, as there have been ever since it was given
to her. I can remember it myself when I was a boy. One of the
pleasures of my visit to the old house was listening in the firelight
to grandfather's 'dragon tales,' as we called them. They were about
all sorts of wonderful things, and we called them that because, while
he told them, the old dragon was always passed around and we sat and
munched sugar-plums. That jar has been in the family so long that your
great-great-grandfather remembered it when he was a boy,--and that is
the jar that Dago broke.
"There were very few children in the neighbourhood where your Aunt
Patricia lived. For a long time she had no playmates except the little
boy who lived on the adjoining place, Donald McClain. But he came over
nearly every day for four years, and they grew to love each other like
brother and sister. It was a lonesome time for the little Patricia
when the McClains moved away. Donald brought her a tiny carnelian ring
the day he came over for the last time. 'To remember me by,' he said,
and she put it on her finger and remembered him always, as the
kindest, manliest little playmate any child ever had.
"She grew up after awhile to be a beautiful young girl. I will show
you her miniature sometime, with the pearls around it. The little
carnelian ring was too small then, and she had to lay it away; but she
never forgot her old playmate. When she was nineteen her mother died,
and, soon after, her father lost his eyesight, and she gave up all her
time to caring for him. She sang to him, read to him, led him around
the garden, and amused him constantly. She never went anywhere without
him, never thought of her own pleasure, but stayed alone with him in
the quiet old house, year after year, until he died.
"Donald came back once after he was a man, and had been through
college, and stayed all summer in his old home. He was going to
Scotland in the fall. Before he left, he asked Aunt Patricia to be his
wife and go with him. She said, 'I would, Donald, if I were not needed
so much here at home; but how could I go away and leave my poor old
blind father?'
"He would not take no for an answer, but went away, saying that he
would be back again in a year, and then they would take care of the
dear old father together. But when the year was over, the ship that
was bringing him home went down at sea in a storm, and all that Aunt
Patricia had left of his was his letters, and the little carnelian
ring he had given her, when they were children, to 'remember him by.'
And that is the ring that Dago lost."
Phil raised his head quickly from his father's shoulder. "Oh, papa!"
he cried. "I'm so sorry! I never could have said anything mean to her
if I had known all that."
His father went on. "That is why I am telling you this now, my son.
Maybe children could understand old people better, if they knew how
much they had suffered in their long lives, how much they had lost,
and how much they had given up for other people's sakes. Aunt Patricia
has been like a mother to me ever since I was left without any, when I
was Stuart's age. She sent me to college, she gave me a home with her
until I was successfully started in my profession, and has shown me a
thousand other kindnesses that I have not been able to repay. I have
been able to make up to her what she has spent in money, but a
lifetime would not be long enough to cancel my debt to her for all the
loving care she has given me. But even if she hadn't been so kind;
even if she were crabbed and cross and unreasonable, I couldn't let a
son of mine be rude to an old lady under my roof. One never knows what
troubles have whitened the hair and made the wrinkles come in the
temper as well as the face. Old age must be respected, no matter how
unlovely.
"As for Aunt Patricia,--if you would only remember how good she was to
you after your accident, how she nursed you, and waited on you, and
read to you hour after hour,--she has been tender and loving to all of
you, especially little Elsie, and is trying to help me bring up my
children as best we can, alone. And, Phil, my boy, sometimes it is as
hard for us as it is for you, to always know what is best to do
without the little mother's help."
Phil's arm stole around his father's neck. "I'll ask Aunt Patricia's
pardon in the morning, the very first thing," he said, in a low voice.
"I'll tell her that I didn't understand her, just like she didn't
understand me, and after this I'll be like the three wise monkeys of
Japan."
"How is that?" asked his father, smiling.
"Why, never say or hear or see more than I ought to. Keep my hands
over my eyes or ears or mouth, whenever I'm tempted to be rude.
Instead of thinking that she's fussy and particular, I'll only see the
wrinkles in her face that the trouble made, and I'll remember how good
she's been to you and all of us."
His father hugged him closer. "If you can always remember to do that,"
he said, "your part of the world will certainly be a happy place to
live in. If you can be blind and deaf to other people's faults and
speak only pleasant things."
"Papa," said Phil, in the pause that followed, hiding his face on his
father's shoulder and speaking with a tremble in his voice, "I'm
mighty sorry I did so many bad things to-day: broke the music-box, and
ran away with Elsie, and mortified the family name, begging on the
streets. That's what Aunt Patricia told Mrs. Driggs. I never want to
run away again as long as I live. Oh, if you'll only forgive me and
let me stay, I'd rather be your little boy than anybody else's in the
whole world!"
The doctor gathered him closer in his arms and kissed him. "Do you
think that anything in the whole world could make me give you up, my
little Philip?" he said. "You have been a great worry to me sometimes,
but you are one of my very greatest blessings, and I love you--oh, my
child, you will never know how much!"
A great, happy "bear-hug" almost choked him, as Phil's arms were
clasped about his neck. Then he said, "I think we understand each
other all the way around, now. Shut your eyes, little man, and I'll
rock you to sleep."
Phil snuggled down against him like a little bird in a warm nest, and
there they sat in the firelight together. The old rocking-chair threw
a giant shadow on the wall as it swung slowly back and forth, back and
forth. "_Creakity-creak_," droned the rockers. "_Creakity-creak_,
_squeakity-squeak_," and to the music of their drowsy song Phil fell
fast asleep in his father's arms.