Old Maids' Children

Old Maids' Children

"IF that were my child, I'd soon break him of such airs and capers.
Only manage him right, and he'll be as good a boy as can be found
anywhere."

"Very few people appear to have any right government over their
children."

"Very few. Here is my sister; a sensible woman enough, and one would
think the very person to raise, in order and obedience, a family of
eight children. But she doesn't manage them rightly; and, what is
remarkable, is exceedingly sensitive, and won't take kindly the
slightest hint from me on the subject. If I say to her, 'If that
were my child, Sarah, I would do so and so,' she will be almost sure
to retort something about old maids' children."

"Yes, that's the way. No matter how defective the family government
of any one may be, she will not allow others to suggest
improvements."

"It would not be so with me. If I had a family of children, I should
not only see their faults, but gladly receive hints from all sides
as to their correction."

"It's the easiest thing in the world to govern children, if you go
the right way about it."

"I know. There is nothing easier. And yet my sister will say,
sometimes, that she is perfectly at a loss what to do. But no
wonder. Like hundreds of others, she has let her children get
completely ahead of her. If they don't break her heart in the end, I
shall be glad."

The immediate cause of this conversation between Miss Martha Spencer
and a maiden lady who had been twenty-five for some ten or fifteen
years--Miss Spencer could not be accused of extensive
juvenility--was the refractory conduct of Mrs. Fleetwood's oldest
child, a boy between six and seven years of age, by which a pleasant
conversation had been interrupted, and the mother obliged to leave
the room for a short period.

"I think, with you," said Miss Jones, the visitor, "that Mrs.
Fleetwood errs very greatly in the management of her children."

"Management! She has no management at all," interrupted Miss
Spencer.

"In not managing her children, then, if you will."

"So I have told her, over and over again, but to no good purpose.
She never receives it kindly. Why, if I had a child, I would never
suffer it to cry after it was six months old. It is the easiest
thing in the world to prevent it. And yet, one of Sarah's children
does little else but fret and cry all the time. She insists upon it
that it can't feel well. And suppose this to be the case?--crying
does it no good, but, in reality, a great deal of harm. If it is
sick, it has made itself so by crying."

"Very likely. I've known many such instances," remarked Miss Jones.

Mrs. Fleetwood, returning at the moment, checked this train of
conversation. She did not allude to the circumstance that caused her
to leave the room, but endeavoured to withdraw attention from it by
some pleasant remarks calculated to interest the visitor and give
the thoughts of all a new direction.

"I hope you punished Earnest, as he deserved to be," said her
sister, as soon as Miss Jones had retired. "I never saw such a
child!"

"He certainly behaved badly," returned Mrs. Fleetwood, speaking in
an absent manner.

"He behaved outrageously! If I had a child, and he were to act as
Earnest did this morning, I'd teach him a lesson that he would not
forget in a year."

"No doubt your children will be under very good government, Martha,"
said Mrs. Fleetwood, a little sarcastically.

"If they are not under better government than yours, I'll send them
all to the House of Refuge," retorted Miss Martha.

The colour on Mrs. Fleetwood's cheeks grew warmer at this remark,
but she thought it best not to reply in a manner likely to provoke a
further insulting retort, and merely said--

"If ever you come to have children of your own, sister, you will be
able to understand, better than you now do, a mother's trials,
doubts, and difficulties. At present, you think you know a great
deal about managing children, but you know nothing."

"I know," replied Martha, "that I could manage my own children a
great deal better than you manage yours."

"If such should prove to be the case, no one will be more rejoiced
at the result than I. But I look, rather, to see your children, if
you should ever become a mother, worse governed than most people's."

"You do?"

"Yes, I do."

"And why, pray?"

"Because my own observation tells me, that those persons who are
most inclined to see defects in family government, and to find fault
with other people's management of their children, are apt to have
the most unruly young scape-graces in their houses to be found
anywhere."

"That's all nonsense. The fact that a person observes and reflects
ought to make that person better qualified to act."

"Right observation and reflection, no doubt, will. But right
observation and reflection in regard to children will make any one
modest and fearful on the subject of their right government, rather
than bold and boastful. Those who, like you, think themselves so
well qualified to manage children, usually make the worst managers."

"It's all very well for you to talk in that way," said Martha,
tossing her head. "But, if I ever have children of my own, I'll show
you whether I have the worst young scape-graces to be found
anywhere."

A low, fretful cry, or rather whine, had been heard from a child
near the door of the room, for some time. It was one of those
annoying, irritating cries, that proceed more from a fretful state
of mind than from any adequate external exciting cause. Martha
paused a moment, and then added--

"Do you think I would suffer a child to cry about the house half of
its time, as Ellen does? No, indeed. I'd soon settle that."

"How would you do it?"

"I'd make her stop crying."

"Suppose you couldn't?"

"Couldn't! That's not the way for a mother to talk."

"Excuse me, Martha," said Mrs. Fleetwood, rising. "I would rather
not hear such remarks from you, and now repeat what I have before
said, more than once, that I wish you to leave me free to do what I
think right in my own family; as I undoubtedly will leave you
free, if ever you should have one."

And Mrs. Fleetwood left the room, and taking the little girl who was
crying at the door by the hand, led her up stairs.

"What is the matter, Ellen?" she asked as calmly and as soothingly
as the irritating nature of Ellen's peculiar cry or whine would
permit her.

"Earnest won't play with me," replied the child, still crying.

"Come up into my room, and see if there isn't something pretty there
to play with."

"No--I don't want to," was the crying answer.

"Yes; come." And Mrs. Fleetwood led along the resisting child.

"No--no--no--I don't want to go. I want Earnest to play with me."

"Humph! I'd stop that pretty quick!" remarked Miss Spencer to
herself, as the petulant cry of the child grew louder. "I'd never
allow a child of mine to go on like that."

Mrs. Fleetwood felt disturbed. But experience had taught her that
whenever she spoke from an irritated state, her words rather
increased than allayed the evil she sought to correct. So she drew
the child along with her, using some force in order to do it, until
she reached her chamber. Her strongest impulse, on being alone with
Ellen, who still continued crying, was to silence her instantly by
the most summary process to which parental authority usually has
resort in such cases; but her mother's heart suggested the better
plan of diverting Ellen's mind, if possible, and thus getting it
into a happier state. In order to do this, she tried various means,
but without effect. The child still cried on, and in a manner so
disturbing to the mother, that she found it almost impossible to
keep from enforcing silence by a stern threat of instant punishment.
But, she kept on, patiently doing what she thought to be right, and
was finally successful in soothing the unhappy child. To her
husband, with whom she was conversing on that evening about the
state into which Ellen had fallen, she said--

"I find it very hard to get along with her. She tires my patience
almost beyond endurance. Sometimes it is impossible to bear with her
crying, and I silence it by punishment. But I observe that if I can
produce a cheerful state by amusing her and getting her interested
in some play or employment, she retains her even temper much longer
than when she has been stopped from crying by threats or punishment.
If I only had patience with her, I could get along better. But it is
so hard to have patience with a fretful, ever crying child."

Of the mental exercises through which Mrs. Fleetwood passed, Miss
Martha Spencer knew nothing. She saw only the real and supposed
errors of her mode of government, and strongly condemned them. Her
doctrine was, in governing children, "implicit obedience must be had
at all hazards." At all hazards, as she generally expressed or
thought it was only meant for extreme or extraordinary cases.
Obedience she believed to be a thing easily obtained by any one who
chose to enforce it. No where, it must be owned, did she see
children as orderly and obedient as she thought they should be. But
that she did not hesitate to set down to the fault of the parents.
Her influence in the family of her sister was not good. To some
extent she destroyed the freedom of Mrs. Fleetwood, and to some
extent disturbed the government of her children by interfering with
it, and attempting to make the little ones do as she thought best.
Her interference was borne about as well as it could be by her
sister, who now and then gave her a "piece of her mind," and in
plain, straight forward terms. Mrs. Fleetwood's usual remark, when
Martha talked about what she would do, if she had children, was a
good humoured one, and generally something after this fashion--

"Old maids' children are the best in the world, I know. They never
cry, are never disobedient, and never act disorderly."

Martha hardly relished this mode of "stopping her off," but it was
generally effective, though sometimes it produced a slight
ebullition.

At last, though the chances in favour of matrimony had become
alarmingly few, Martha was wooed, won, and married to a gentleman
named Laurie, who removed with her to the West.

"There is some prospect at last," Mrs. Fleetwood said to her
husband, with a smile, on the occasion of Martha's wedding, "of
sister's being able to bring into practice her theories in regard to
family government. I only hope the mother's children may be as good
as the old maid's."

"I doubt if they will," remarked the husband, smiling in turn.

"We shall see."

Years passed, and Martha, now Mrs. Laurie, remained in the West. Her
sister frequently heard from her by letter, and every now and then
received the announcement of a fine babe born to the proud mother;
who as often spoke of her resolution to do her duty towards her
children, and especially in the matter of enforcing obedience. She
still talked eloquently of the right modes of domestic government,
and the high and holy duties of parents.

"Let me be blamable in what I may," said she, in one of these
letters, "it shall not be a disregard to the best interests of my
children."

"I hope not, indeed," said Mrs. Fleetwood, after reading the passage
to her husband. "But those who really understand the true character
of children, and are sensible of the fact that they inherit from
their parents all the evil and disorderly tendencies not fully
overcome in themselves, feel too deeply the almost hopeless task
they assume, to boast much of what they will do with _their_
children. A humble, reserved, even trembling consciousness of the
difficulties in the way of the parent, is the most promising state
in which a parent can assume his or her responsibilities. To look
for perfect order and obedience is to look for what never comes. Our
duty is to sow good seed in the minds of our children, and to see
that the ground be kept as free from evil weeds as possible. The
time of fruit is not until reason is developed; and we err in
expecting fruit at an early period. There will come the tender
blade, green and pleasant to the eye, and the firm, upright stalk,
with its leaves and its branches; and flowers, too, after a while,
beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers; but the fruit of all our labour,
of all our careful culture, appears not until reason takes the place
of mere obedience, and the child becomes the man. This view saves me
from many discouragements; and leads me, in calm and patient hope,
to persevere, even though through months, and, I might almost say,
years, little prospect of ultimate fruit becomes apparent. But, good
seed must bring forth good fruit."

After a while, Mrs. Laurie ceased to write in her old strain. She
sometimes spoke of her two eldest sons as fine boys, and of her two
little girls as dear, sweet creatures; but generally omitted saying
any thing more about her family than that all were in good health.

Ten years after Martha's marriage and removal to the West, during
which time the sisters had not met, business required Mr. Fleetwood
to go to Cincinnati, and he proposed that his wife should accompany
him, and pay a visit to Mrs. Laurie, who lived in Springfield, Ohio.
Mrs. Fleetwood readily consented, and they started in the pleasant
month of October.

On arriving at Springfield, they were met by Mr. Laurie at the
stage-office and taken to his house, where the sisters met,
overjoyed at seeing each other once more.

"Is that one of your children?" asked Mrs. Fleetwood, after she had
laid aside her bonnet and riding-dress, and seated herself in her
sister's chamber. A red-faced boy, with pouting lips, and a brow
naturally or artificially so heavy as almost to conceal his organs
of vision, stood holding on to one side of the door, and swinging
himself in and out, all the while eyeing fixedly his aunt, of whose
intended visit he had been advised.

"Yes, that is my oldest. Henry, come here and speak to your aunty."

But Henry did not change either attitude, motion, nor expression,
any more than if he had been a swinging automaton.

"Did you hear me?" Mrs. Laurie spoke with a slight change in her
voice and manner.

The boy remained as impassive as before.

"Come, dear, and shake hands with me," said Mrs. Fleetwood.

Henry now put one of his thumbs into his mouth, but neither looked
nor acted less savagely than at first.

Mrs. Laurie was fretted at this unfavourable exhibition of himself
by her son. She felt as if she would like to get hold of him and box
his ears until they burned for a week.

"Henry! Come here!" She spoke in a tone of command. The door was
quite as much impressed as her son.

"Either come and speak to your aunty, or go down-stairs
immediately."

The boy moved not.

This was too much for Mrs. Laurie, and she started towards him.
Henry let go of the door, and went down-stairs about as quietly as a
horse would have gone.

"He's such a strange, shy boy," said Mrs. Laurie, apologetically.
"But he has a good heart, and you can do almost any thing with him.
How is Earnest? the dear little fellow."

"Earnest is almost a man. He is as large as I am," replied Mrs.
Fleetwood.

"Indeed! I can't think of him as any thing but a bright little boy,
not so large as my Henry."

As she said this, her Henry, who had gone clattering down-stairs a
few moments before, presented himself at the door again, and
commenced swinging himself, and taking observations of the state of
affairs within the chamber. The mother and aunt both concluded
within their own minds that it was as well not to take any notice of
him, and therefore went on with their conversation. Presently a
happy, singing voice was heard upon the stairs.

"There comes my little Martha, the light of the whole house," said
Mrs. Laurie. In a few moments, a sweet-faced child presented
herself, and was about entering, when Henry stepped into the door,
and, putting a foot against each side, blocked up the way. Martha
attempted to pass the rude boy, and, in doing so, fell over one of
his feet, and struck her face a severe blow upon the floor. The loud
scream of the hurt child, the clattering of Henry down-stairs, and
the excited exclamation of the mother as she sprang forward, were
simultaneous. Mr. Laurie and Mr. Fleetwood came running up from the
room below, and arrived in time to see a gush of blood from the nose
of Martha, as her mother raised her from the floor.

"Isn't it too much!" exclaimed Mrs. Laurie. "I think that it is the
worst boy I ever saw in my life!"

The application of a little cold water soon staunched the flow of
blood, and a few kind words soothed the feelings of the child, who
sat in her mother's lap, and answered her aunt when she spoke to
her, like a little lady, as she was.

"Where are the rest of your children?" asked Mrs. Fleetwood. The
gentlemen were now seated with the ladies.

"You've had a pretty fair sample of them," replied Mr. Laurie,
smiling good humouredly, "and may as well be content with that for
the present. To say the best of them, they are about as wild a set
of young scape-graces as ever made each other miserable, and their
parents, too, sometimes."

"Why, Mr. Laurie!" exclaimed his wife, who had not forgotten her old
opinions, freely expressed, about the ease with which children could
be governed. "I'm sure you needn't say that. I think our children
quite as good as other people's, and a little better than some I
could name."

"Well, perhaps they are, and nothing to brag of at that," replied
Mr. Laurie. "Children are children, and you can't make any thing
more out of them."

"But children should be made orderly and obedient," said Mrs.
Laurie, with some dignity of expression.

"If they can," pleasantly returned the father. "So far, we, at
least, have not succeeded to our wishes in this respect. As to order
and obedience, they seem to be cardinal sins rather than cardinal
virtues, at present. But I hope better things after a while."

As this was said, some one was heard tumbling rather than walking
up-stairs, and, in a moment after, in bolted a boy about seven years
old, crying out--

"Hen' says Uncle and Aunt Fleetwood have come! Have they, mom?"

The boy stopped short on perceiving that strangers were present.

"Yes, my son, your Uncle and Aunt Fleetwood are here," said Mr.
Fleetwood, reaching out his hand to the little fellow. Remembering
Martha's former rigid notions about the government of children, he
felt so much amused by what he saw, that he could hardly help
laughing out immoderately. "Come here," he added, "and let me talk
to you."

The boy went without hesitation to his uncle, who took him by the
hand and said, with a half wicked glance at the mother, yet with a
broad good humoured smile upon his face,

"That must be a very knowing hen of yours. I should like to have
some of her chickens."

"What hen?" asked the boy, with a serious air.

"Why, the hen that told you we were here."

"No hen told me that." The boy looked mystified.

"Oh! I thought you said Hen' told you so."

"No, it was Henry."

"Say, no _sir_, my son." Mrs. Laurie's face was not pale, certainly,
as she said this.

The boy did not think it worth while to repeat the formality.

"Oh! it was your brother Henry," replied Mr. Fleetwood, with
affected seriousness. "I thought that must have been a very knowing
hen." The boy, and his sister who had recovered from the pain of her
fall, laughed heartily. "Now tell me your name?"

"John."

"Say John, _sir_. Where are your manners?" spoke up the mother, who
remembered that, with all her sister's imperfect management of her
children, she had succeeded in teaching them to be very respectful
in their replies to older persons, and that Earnest, when she last
saw him, was a little gentleman in his manners when amy one spoke to
him.

"Mo-_ther_!" came now ringing up the stairs, in a loud, screeching
little voice. "Mo-_ther_! Hen' won't let me come up."

"I declare! That boy is too bad! He's a perfect torment!" said Mrs.
Laurie, fretfully. "I'm out of all heart with him."

The father stepped to the head of the stairs, and spoke rather
sternly to the rebellious Henry. Little feet, were soon heard
pattering up, and the youngest of the young hopefuls made her
appearance, and, soon after, Henry pushed his really repulsive face
into the door and commenced grimacing at the other children, thereby
succeeding in what he desired to do, viz., starting little Maggy,
the youngest, into a whining, fretful cry, because "Hen' was making
faces" at her. This cry, once commenced, was never known to end
without the application of something more decided in its effects
than words. It was in vain that the mother used every persuasive,
diverting and soothing means in her power: the crying, loud enough
to drown all conversation, continued, until, taking the child up
hurriedly in her arms, she bore her into another room, where she
applied some pretty severe silencing measures, which had, however,
the contrary effect to that desired. The child cried on, but louder
than before. For nearly ten minutes, she sought by scolding and
whipping to silence her, but all was in vain. It is doubtful, after
the means used to enforce silence, whether the child could have
stopped if she had tried. At last, the mother locked her in a
closet, and came, with a flushed face and mortified feelings, back
to the room from which she had retired with Maggy.

The moment Mrs. Laurie left, her husband, with a word and a look,
brought the three children into order and quietness. Henry was told,
in a low voice, and in a tone of authority, that he never thought of
questioning, to go up into the garret and remain there until he sent
for him. The boy retired without the slightest hesitation.

When Mrs. Laurie returned, Mr. Fleetwood, who was a man of frank,
free, and pleasant manners, could not resist the temptation he felt
to remind her of the past; he, therefore, said, laughingly,

"You have doubtless found out, by this time, Martha, that old maids'
children are the best."

This sally had just the effect he designed it to have. It was an
apology for the children, as it classed them with other real
children, in contradistinction to the imaginary offspring of the
unmarried, that are known by every one to be faultless specimens of
juvenility.

"Come! That is too bad, Mr. Fleetwood," replied Mrs. Laurie, feeling
an immediate sense of relief. "But, I own to the error I committed
before marriage. It seemed to me the easiest thing in the world to
manage children, when I thought about it, and saw where parents
erred, or appeared to err, in their modes of government. I did not
then know what was _in_ children. All their perverseness I laid to
the account of bad management. Alas! I have had some sad experiences
in regard to my error. Still, I cannot but own that children are
made worse by injudicious treatment, and also, that mine ought to be
a great deal better than they are."

"Like the rest of us," returned Mr. Fleetwood, "you have no doubt
discovered, that it is one thing to _think_ about the government of
children, and another thing to be in the midst of their disturbing
sphere, and yet act as if you did not feel it. Theory and practice
are two things. It seems, when we think coolly, that nothing can be
easier than to cause the one exactly to correspond to the other. But
whoever makes the trial, especially where the right government of
children is concerned, will find it a most difficult matter. What
makes the government of their children so hard a thing for parents,
is the fact that the evils of the children have been inherited from
them, and therefore the reaction of these evils upon themselves is
the more disturbing. We haven't as much patience with the faults of
our own children, often, as other people have. They fret and annoy
us, and take away our ability to speak in a proper tone and act with
becoming dignity toward them, and thus destroy their respect for
us."

"Nothing can be truer," said Mrs. Laurie. "I stand rebuked. I am
self-condemned, every day, on this very account. I used to think
that your government and that of Sarah's over your children very
defective. But it was far better than the government that I have
been able to exercise over mine. Ah me!"

"Don't sigh over the matter so terribly, Martha," spoke up the
husband. "We shall get them right in the end. Never give up the
ship, is my motto in this and every thing else. But I wouldn't have
our brother and sister here think for a moment that the scenes they
have witnessed are enacted every day. Their visit is an occasion of
some excitement to our young folks, and they had to show off a
little. They will cool down again, and we shall get on pleasantly
enough."

"That is all very true," said Mrs. Laurie, more cheerfully. "I never
saw them act quite so outrageously before, when any one came in.
There is much good in them, and you will see it before you leave
us."

"No doubt in the world of that," replied Mr. Fleetwood; "there is
good in all children, and it is our duty to exercise great
forbearance towards their evils, and be careful lest, by what we do
or say, we strengthen, rather than break them."

And the good that was in Mrs. Laurie's children was clearly seen by
Mr. and Mrs. Fleetwood during their stay; but, that good was, alas!
not strengthened as it might have been, nor were the evils they
inherited kept quiescent, as they would to a great extent have
remained, had the mother been more patient and forbearing--had her
practice been as good as her theory.

It is easy for us to see how others ought to act toward their
children, but very hard for us to act right toward our own.

-THE END-
T S Arthur's short story: Old Maids' Children

GO TO TOP OF SCREEN