24 GOSSIP ABOUT CHILDREN. very low; and there was a beam run out from the wharf; and CHARLES got out on it to get a fish-line and hook that hung over where the water was deep; and the first thing we saw, he had slipped off, and was struggling in the water! HENRY threw off his cap and jumped clear from the wharf into the water, and, after a great deal of hard work, got CHARLES out; and they waded up through the mud to where the wharf was not so wet and slippery; and then I helped them to climb up the side. CHARLES told HENRY not to say any thing about it, for, if he did, his father would never let him go near the water again. HENRY was very sorry; and, all the way going home, he kept saying: "What will father say when he sees me to-night? I wish we had not gone to the wharf ?'' 'Dear, brave boy!' exclaimed the bereaved father; 'and this was the explanation which I so cruelly refused to hear!" And hot and bitter tears rolled down his cheeks. Yes! that stern father now learned, and for the first time, that what he had treated with unwonted severity as a fault, was but the impulse of a generous nature, which, forgetful of self, had hazarded life for another. It was but the quick prompting of that manly spirit which he himself had always endeavored to graft upon his susceptible mind, and which, young as he was, had already manifested itself on more than one occasion. GOSSIP ABOUT CHILD r e n. 25 Let me close this story in the very words of that father, and let the lesson sink deep into the hearts of every parent who shall peruse this sketch : "Every thing that I now see, that ever belonged to him, reminds me of my lost boy. Yesterday, I found some rude pencil-sketches which it was his delight to make for the amusement of his younger brother. To-day, in rummaging an old closet, I came across his boots, still covered with dock-mud, as when he last wore them. (You may think it strange, but that which is usually so unsightly an object, is now 'most precious to me.') And every morning and evening, I pass the ground where my son's voice rang the merriest among his play-mates. 'All these things speak to me vividly of his active life; but I cannot — though I have often tried I cannot le call any other expression of the dear boy's face than that mute, mournful one with which he turned from me on the night I so harshly repulsed him. . . . Then my heart bleeds afresh ! Oh, how careful should we all be, that in our daily conduct towards those little beings sent us by a kind PROVIDENCE, we are not laying up for ourselves the sources of many a future bitter tear! How cautious that, neither by inconsiderate nor cruel word or look, we unjustly grieve their generous feeling! And how guardedly ought we to weigh every action against its motive, lest, in a moment of 2 26 GOSSIP ABOUT CHILDREN. excitement, we be led to mete out to the venial errors of the heart the punishment due only to wilful crime! 'Alas! perhaps few parents suspect how often the fierce rebuke, the sudden blow, is answered in their children by the tears, not of passion, not of physical or mental pain, but of a loving yet grieved or outraged nature!' I will add no word to reflections so true no correlative incident to an experience so touching. |