Put the Little Ones Happy to Bed.
AND I think it no small service if you can kiss them into good dreams, and placid, restful sleep. A little child’s heart is a wonderful instrument; from it comes harmonies the tenderest and wisest mother cannot always understand. How can we hope to do so? For to them is often revealed “wisdom too high for us,” and to which we cannot attain. Who suffers as a little child suffers? What hours of torturing agony in the dark nursery! It is no use to forbid ghost or fairy tales; there is no need; every child finds them in his own “thick-coming fancies.” They were always there, types of which the archetypes are in us and eternal. Solitude and darkness are torments to little children; at least before you commit them to it, let them feel that you are within call of their foolish cry; and whisper between the kisses of your “good-night” assurance of God’s love and watchfulness. Up the dim avenue, through the hot, poisoned air, heavy with the sickly fragrance of oleanders, there passed my door one summer evening two brothers, the elder scarcely ten years old. For a moment they stopped and spoke to me, and I noticed the weary looks and the flushed faces of the children, and a fear that was a presentiment crossed my mind and saddened my heart. “Where have you been, boys?” I said, “your mother is anxious and angry. Do you not know that the fever is raging and that the night air is full of death?” “We were trying to catch some trout for mother, but something was the matter, the fish would not bite, and Willie’s head ached so badly I had to carry him most of the way home.” The little speaker was so weary or sick that he caught at the railing for support. I opened the gate, and, lifting the younger child, walked the few yards necessary to see them safely home. It was nearly dark, so there was some excuse for the mother not noticing in the shaded piazza what I had seen at the garden gate. She met them with reproofs for their delay, and contempt for want of success, and then hurried them into the dining-room, saying: “Eat as quickly as you can and then go to bed.” I waited half an hour, but the boys did not appear. “Where are the children?” I asked. “Oh! they are gone to bed, they were too tired to eat.” “Perhaps they were sick,” I suggested. “Willie had a flushed face, and the fever is raging to-day.” “Oh, no! They are natives, and are thoroughly acclimated. John has been through three epidemics, and I fancy Willie had as much yellow fever as ever he will have, nearly two years ago.” I never saw the little fellow again. They were both buried in one grave the next day. No one knew they were sick until they were insensible, and almost in their last moments they muttered in delirious stupor of the “fish they could not catch for mother’s breakfast.” And for the poor, wretched mother there came nevermore in this world a moment in which she could soothe their wounded little hearts, or say one atoning word for her last thoughtless sneer at their want of skill. Say “good night” to your little ones as if you were saying “good-bye.” It is bad enough to bear when grief alone fills the place of your absent ones; but when remorse sits in the empty chair, and your last memory of the dear little face is that of a wronged and sorrowful child, it is a haunting reproach which you may hardly hope in this world to dismiss.—N. Y. Argus.