You Cannot Begin Too Soon.
By Mrs. M. M. Bonsall
I SUPPOSE little Willie Fero must have been selfish, for he exhibited the trait long before he walked or talked, and he was not an only child, either. "Now is the time, sister; you cannot begin too early; he will probably never be as open and generous as Jennie or Charley, but you can certainly curb the tendency." "Oh pshaw! Mary, how can you tell whether a child will be this or that while a mere infant. It is perfectly natural for a baby to want what he sees. I am sure Jennie and Charley were just like him." "There you are wrong. I don't know so much of Charley; but there never was a sweeter, more generous little child than Jennie. I was with you all through her babyhood, and when Charley came she couldn't do enough for him; or even before that, when but a year old, she never saw a child, either at home or abroad, that she didn't want to give something to. She would even climb off her little sled and ask her nurse to put some other child on it; and Charley, though perhaps not so self-sacrificing, is an unselfish child; but Willie goes ahead of any I ever saw." "But, Mary, I have no fear about his growing up selfish. Where would he get it from? You, and the whole family have always said that there was not a selfish hair in my head, and his papa is just as free from it." "That is neither here nor there, sister. Traits will crop out. There are some selfish ones in our family, and so long as you are not blind to your child's inclination, you had better try to stem the current at once." "How, pray? I can't reason with him. I don't see how you are to make a baby understand why he cannot do this or have that." "Why, Elizabeth, you astonish me. Never wait until a child is old enough to reason with; if you do, habits will be formed, the child will be master of you; and it must be a remarkable one who, after having had its own way until it is old enough to be reasoned with, will listen to it from one whom he has controlled, even though it be a parent. That child, sister, has, to speak within bounds, pulled that under spool from your machine twenty times to-day, and you can't stop him from doing it." "Yes I could, if I had the mind to whip him." "Why do you not do it, then?" "Because I hate to. He is so little and cunning; his heart would be broken." "Nonsense! Heart-broken! Yours will be broken if you do not do something with him. There it goes again! Now why do you not slap his fingers until they sting a little; he wouldn't pull that spool off many more times, if you will only let him know what you mean by 'mamma'll whip fingers.' He hears that dozens of times a day, and has never yet had it illustrated." Here Mrs. Fero rose, and with a quick little way she had, picked up the spool and said, as she had so many times said before, "Now, Willie, mamma whip fingers," only this time she carried the threat into effect. If you could have seen and heard this little tyrant, you would have pitied the mother, at the same time thinking it was time he was taken in hand. "Don't notice him, sister; he'll soon get over it; all he wants is you to look at him." "But he'll knock his head off. I never knew him to do such a thing before." "Because he has never been thwarted. I have seen children do this same thing before, fall down and bump their heads against the floor, just as he is doing. It can't be that it hurts, or they wouldn't do it. It is his temper. Pretend you don't see him, and you'll see how soon he'll be over it." All the while mamma and aunty were talking sotto voce this young eighteen-month-older was giving little short jerks of screams, with an occasional bump with his head on the floor; but as aunty had said, the least said the sooner mended, the little toad's troubles were soon forgotten, and nature's sweet restorer was indeed a relief to all hands. "Now, Elizabeth, you have made a beginning, and so has he. After all, though he started out with such violence, it was not of long duration. And he was not killed either; and is sleeping as sweetly as ever. And the victory, what there is of it, is on your side. And let me tell you that if you do not always have it, it will be your own fault. Always be firm, never give in to him, don't let pity get the best of you, and, above all, make him understand how much you love him. To-morrow, or even when he wakes, should he go to the machine, as he doubtless will do, and pull the spool off, repeat the taps on his fingers. It will be very hard to go through it all again; but all will have gone for nothing if you are not uniform in what you undertake. You have a noble work before you, and you are patient and amiable. Oh! do, for the sake of your own and your children's happiness, be less yielding to their wishes. You are too busy; it is your greatest fault. And now as to Willie's selfishness, much of this will have to be educated out of him; only make him understand that one handful at a time is enough for him, he generally wants both hands filled; and because he is 'baby' don't make the others give up to him as you do; though it may not hurt them, it will certainly hurt him. Teach him to exercise self-denial at the start." "Do you remember, Elizabeth, my old friend, Mrs. Prime?" "Yes, indeed, whatever became of her? I thought her so bright and intelligent." "She died over a year ago, and you would never have thought, had you seen her when her two children were small, that she would have died of a broken heart on their account. Her eldest boy was a terror from the first; so long as he was young everything was cunning that he did, for he was very bright and intelligent, but somehow everything tended to bad. Complaints used to come after a while to his parents, and Mrs. Prime has often talked to me about him, and would say, 'I'm not at all afraid but that Eddie will make his mark. I hardly see the use of noticing every little thing a child does, just as soon as he is old enough to reason with, I'll take him in hand.' Alas! he made his mark, but it was a bad one. When he became old enough to reason with, habits and traits had gotten a firm grip, and could not be brought to yield to reason. So Eddie went from bad to worse, and was the skeleton of that once lovely home. The daughter, you know, was wayward, and married unhappily. So I really think, though both parents were bright and intelligent, that they were greatly to blame in allowing their children to have their own way too long. I said to Mrs. Prime's physician during her last illness, 'What appears to be the matter, doctor, with Mrs. Prime, she doesn't seem to have any pain?'" "Simply, madam, a broken heart," was his answer. "And so, dear sister, it lies with you greatly whether you die of a broken heart. Only begin in time, or rather begin at once. You have lost some time, still you are yet the master, I see."