How is it that boys and girls so often forget to close the door quietly?
When Maurice went out to school in the afternoon he knew that his mother
had a headache, but by the time he came home he had forgotten all about
it, and so he stamped in with his muddy shoes unwiped, leaving the front
door wide open.
His mother said, "Close the door, Maurice," and he gave it a great bang,
which made her shudder.
Next he walked into the room, flung his bag on a chair, his cap on the
floor, and his overcoat on the sofa. Then he said in a loud voice,
"Well, mother, how's your head?" His poor mother felt almost too sad to
answer him; she had so often told her little boy about hanging up his
coat and other things, and had tried so hard to teach him to be gentle
and polite, instead of rough and rude; but you see Maurice was
=thoughtless=, and did not remember the nice things he had been taught.
Take care, Maurice! or you will have the ugly stone of "Selfishness" in
your Temple. A boy who is not kind to his mother is the worst kind of
boy, and will find it difficult to grow up into a good and noble man.