A Plea for the Little Ones.
It has often been a surprise to me that mothers, even those most solicitous for the happiness of their children, are not more careful to conceal their own griefs and troubles from the knowledge of these sensitive little ones. As the minds of young children are not mature enough to express the effect which the sorrows of others have upon them, we are prone to suppose that they feel nothing, save a momentary interest and sympathy in the matter; so we indulge our grief in their presence without restraint, thus weighting the tender little hearts with a burden of sympathy mingled with terror proportionate to their inability to comprehend. It may be said, and with truth, that sorrow is evanescent with young children, that they weep one moment and smile the next; happily this is true, but none the less is it true that no child can indulge in a prolonged fit of weeping, or be worried in any way, without being a loser in vitality, and as a sequence in ability to resist disease. It is painful to witness the spasmodic sobs and languor of a child who has been thus excited; it has been with them a retrograde movement alike to mind and body, and nature's forces, which should have been used in developing, must now be spent in recuperating. "Does your head ache, mamma?" inquired one of these little ones. "No, darling; mamma's heart aches," was the reply. "Poor mamma!" said the child, tears of sympathy coming into the tender eyes, while the quivering lips pressed a kiss upon the mother's hand, and she sighed like one acquainted with sorrow. A delicate and nervous neighbor of mine had a little daughter as delicate and nervous as herself, who possessed one of the most sympathetic and affectionate natures I have ever seen in a child. One evening in summer the mother dressed the little girl neatly and prettily, as was her custom, and I thought I had never seen her look so sweet and happy as she chatted merrily on the steps of their dwelling with her little companions. In the meantime, the mother had sent her eldest son, a lad of about eight years, upon an errand to the residence of the family physician, many squares away. It began to grow dark and the boy had not returned, and the mother in consequence was nervous and alarmed;141wept, wrung her hands, and walked the floor in an agony of distress. The physician being absent from home, the boy, using the best judgment he possessed, had waited for him. It was but one hour from the time his mother expected him until he came, but what a change had come over that little daughter in that one hour! I doubt if any grown person could realize the terror and distress which had tortured the little breast—a distress too deep for tears. Her face that evening did not regain its color, the dark circles under the eyes did not disappear for many hours afterwards, and her sleep that night was broken and unrefreshing. The child had suffered unnecessary injury. It was a case in which she could offer no remedy, therefore should have been exempt from all knowledge. "I never had a childhood," remarked a middle-aged friend to me a short time ago. "I never knew what it was to be free from care. I am aged before my time." There was no need of explanation; I knew all there was to tell. Her father had been intemperate, and the most of the providing for the family had fallen upon the mother, who had looked upon her little daughter, her eldest, as her great comforter and helper. She never knew to the day of her death, that her struggles and despondencies had saddened the life of her child; that she had crushed out the buoyancy which should be an attribute of youth; that she had warped the development, and as the daughter had expressed it, "made her old before her time." O mothers! the path of life may be thorny enough for those tender feet in the time to come. Let them have a child's joys and pleasures while they are young enough to enjoy them; at least, let us be womanly and bear our own crosses and trials, and not lay upon the weak shoulders of our little ones burdens which we in our maturity feel are too heavy to bear.—Sel.