p. 12 | A Mother's Lesson by Elizabeth Wood

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 3, 1884

A Mother's Lesson.

By Elizabeth Wood

Mrs. Edson was out one summer afternoon for a walk. It had been hot during the middle of the day, but as the sun grew low there sprung up a breeze, soft and refreshing, that had tempted the lonely woman out of doors. Her heart had been full of tender, sorrowful memories all day, and now, as she passed the home of her neighbor, Mrs. Jones, she stopped to watch little Charlie Jones tugging away at a huge basket of chips, with eyes full of tears. This woman loved all children, but more than any other she seemed to love little boys like Charlie.

"Ah, Charlie," she said, "you must be a very good and strong boy to get such a nice lot of chips for your mother. Let me help you with the basket."

His cheeks were flushed and his eyes shone like stars as he answered:—

"Oh, no, please, Mrs. Edson. I want to tell mother I did every single bit for her myself. I mean to get in every one in that great pile before she and father get home. I guess they'll think I've done pretty well; don't you?"

Mrs. Edson bent down to kiss the eager face, so full of boyish love and pride.

"Johnny and Hugh wanted me to go off with them, but I'd rather help mother; wouldn't you? You see I'm going to surprise her, Mrs. Edson."

With a caution about carrying loads too large for his young arms, she passed on leaving him to the work he was so eager to resume. When she was almost out of sight, looking back, she caught one last glimpse of Charlie busily at work with an air of importance that sat oddly upon his small figure.

Coming back an hour later with head and heart rested, Mrs. Edson called in to see Mrs. Jones a few minutes. She had just returned and was removing her outer wrap, but greeted her neighbor most cordially. The two women sat down for a friendly talk, when Charlie came bounding in.

"O mother! you can't think what I've been doing! Do come out into the shed one minute and see. Please mamma!"

"Hush, child, don't bother me with your nonsense. Don't you see that I am busy and can't stop to see what new mischief you have been up to?"

The shining eyes looked with trembling eagerness into her own. "Do come, mamma. I did it all for you, every bit, and it won't take more'n a minute."

With a few harsh words she sent him away; and it was with a sorely disappointed face and a lagging step that he went out where he wouldn't "bother."

"That boy is always trying to do something wonderfully nice when we go away, and he is perfectly sure to do something horrid," she said to her guest; "but I want to show you how nicely my calla is looking," and she sprung up with alacrity. "I set it out on the shed this noon to shower it, and forgot it before I went away. There are three beautiful blossoms on it, and they are so sweet you must see them."

So she went out, and I suppose Charlie must have been lingering around, for through the open door Mrs. Edson could hear his eager voice.

"See, mother, isn't there a lot? Enough to boil the tea-kettle a hundred times, I think."

There came a sudden cry of dismay, a sound of quick, hard blows, a child's screams, more blows, then silence.

Mrs. Jones soon returned to her guest with the angry flush still upon her face, bearing a broken lily.

"Don't you think that naughty boy took it into his head to get in a lot of chips, and he must have hit the buds with his basket and knocked this over. I've whipped him so he won't be likely to do such a thing again very soon," and she looked like one who had conquered an enemy. "Of course he denied it, but there was nobody else to do it. It is a wonder that I take any peace at all with such a tearing boy around."

Mrs. Edson looked at the calla with a sober face, and could say nothing, her heart was so full of pity for the little boy who had tried so hard to do "something for mother" and failed so signally.

Just then Mr. Jones came in, and seeing the broken plant said, carelessly, "If you women must have such things around it might be better not to leave them in the shed for a man to stumble over," and he rubbed his injured leg, lustily.

"You didn't break my lily, did you, John?" asked his wife, excitedly.

"To be sure; and I shall again if you leave it directly in my way to stumble against," he answered, serenely.

Mrs. Jones vanished, and soon came back leading a red-faced, tumble-haired boy, with eyes still wet, and great sobs still shaking his childish figure. Mr. Jones looked up in wonder.

"Why Charlie, what is the matter?"

"Mamma said that I broke the lily, and she whipped me," he sobbed, "but I didn't. I only brought in the chips; I never touched the lily."

"Never mind, Charlie, I broke it myself; so perhaps you saved me a whipping. I guess mamma didn't hurt very badly. Come, wipe your eyes and show father how many chips you brought in."

"Dear me," sighed Mrs. Jones "I wish I could always remember to be sure I'm right before I go ahead." But I can hear him laughing this minute. I guess he'll get over it." And she began carelessly to relate some bit of gossip to her friend.

Mrs. Edson's thoughts flew back to another warm-hearted, loving little boy, whose life went out in the morning because the mother thought it a trifling thing to "offend one of these little ones." Her resolution was taken, and if any words of hers could avail, her neighbor should be spared from the grief she herself had known. She told Mrs. Jones of watching the busy Charlie trying so manfully to help his mother; of his refusing her aid because he wanted "to do every bit his own self," and of the loving pride manifested in every word and look.

"Such love and thoughtfulness, Mrs. Jones, are worth a great deal, even if he had inadvertently done some trifling injury."

"I'm afraid I have been all wrong in my dealings with him. Only yesterday I punished him for breaking a plate he dropped while trying to help me clear the dinner table, and he cried himself to sleep because 'mamma didn't love him.'"

"If you had taken him on your knee and told him kindly that little boys could help most by doing the kind of work they know how to do, but that you loved him dearly for the kind heart that prompted the effort, I think he would have been as careful to help intelligently next time. Dear Mrs. Jones, don't think I want to lecture you, but I can't bear to think you may have to learn as I did, what a true-hearted boy like Charlie is worth in any home by knowing what that home is without him."

So in the twilight Mrs. Edson told her neighbor the story of her own mistakes with her Willie. Years ago, in another State, this other boy had made her quiet home noisy with his fun and frolic.

"He was an impulsive, zealous child, forever getting up new plans, and often getting into trouble in his eagerness to do something for his mother."

"O Mrs. Jones," she continued, "I'm terribly afraid, when I see mothers harsh and unkind to their children over well-meant mistakes, that sometime they will have to learn the lesson I mastered through bitter tears. I remember how he used to mortify me because his feet would keep moving and his restless hands would not stay folded. I remember telling him one day that the first man who came along that would buy boys I should sell him, and then get Mrs. Hunt to let me take one of her children, who could sit still five minutes at a time. I know now that I grieved his loving heart sorely with my impatience and fault-finding, but then I thought I was only just to him. Day after day, year after year, went by, until more than once I heard him mutter, 'that it wasn't any use to try to please mother,' but the loving heart always prevailed, and in a few minutes he would come with a kiss, and ask me to love him again."

"When he was nine years old, came the great sorrow of my life. I never spoke of it before to any one but my husband, and could not now, only to save you from a like fearful sorrow. Your Charlie has the same loving disposition, sensitive to harsh words, and grieving sorely at an injustice."

"One day I had made him a new coat with bright buttons, that pleased him wonderfully. He gave me a great hugging and kisses, as if I had never been unkind to him in my life, declaring he would always be good and never do anything to bother me in his life!"

"That morning I went with his father to a neighboring town, leaving Willie with many injunctions not to get into mischief. I had said that the next day I must weed my flower-bed without fail. I can see now how he looked as we drove off, Willie shouting, 'I'm going to do just the nicest thing to-day, and there shan't be a bit of mischief in it.'"

"When we came home he pulled me out into the yard to see what he had done. His eager fingers had, truly, pulled up the many weeds from among my flowers, but in his zeal and childish ignorance he had destroyed a few choice plants which I had nursed with great care."

"He stood with glowing cheeks and eyes like stars, waiting for mamma's kiss and her words of commendation. My anger was too great for me to heed his love and the beseeching in his eyes, or to hold back the bitter words and sharp blows. Ah, my friend, we don't always realize how hard we strike when we are angry."

"Poor Willie, he led me out proud and happy; a few minutes later I left him sobbing on the grass, broken-hearted."

"I had many things to do that night, and it

was late before I noticed that he had not come in. We waited, but still he lingered, till at last we began to search for him in earnest. It was midnight when we found him, hidden among a clump of spruces half a mile away from home, where he had run to cry out his grief alone. We carried him home, wet with the heavy dew, his face showing still the traces of his tears."

"How can I tell you of the days that followed! He never said a rational word to me again. He never seemed to know me. Day after day the fever which exposure had brought on held him in its grasp, and when the crisis came he slipped away from life and his mother, heedless of my bitter prayers for forgiveness."

"I shall never forget how he used to cry, 'Oh, tell mamma I didn't mean to hurt her plants. I thought she'd be so glad. Don't let her whip me so! It hurts Willie!'"

"At the end of a week the restless feet were still forever and the busy hands quietly folded over the pulseless heart. You can imagine a little my remorse and despair, but God grant you may never know such agony as I felt when, in putting on the last clean garments for his long sleep, and the little coat he had never worn, I found the dark marks on his tender flesh my own hand had made."

"Oh, you cannot know now, and if my pain can help you never to know, I shall be glad I have told you. You have known me as a quiet woman, whom nothing seemed to vex, and you told me last week, 'If I had such a trial as you had in the shape of a boy, I couldn't be so happy and serene.'"

"Don't, Mrs. Jones, don't cry so for me. I have learned to be almost glad God took him from me. If he had lived, and I had gone on in my old sharp way, I might have driven him into sin and wrong."

Mrs. Edson rose to go home, and as Mrs. Jones grasped her hand and with eyes and voice full of tears, she whispered:—

"Thank you, dear friend, and I will try with God's help to be more patient with my child's mistakes, and if he is spared to brighten our home still I will lead him as best a mother may to the better home."—Elizabeth Wood, in Arthur's Home Magazine.