A GENTLEMAN OF TEN by Mrs. Emma A. Hewitt

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 6, 1887

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 13, No. 1.

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A GENTLEMAN OF TEN.

By Mrs. Emma A. Hewitt

“Herbert, Herbert!”

Herbert Doane paused a half-minute to answer impatiently, “Well?”

“Did you hang up your school-bag?”

“Oh, bother! I forgot it. Anyway, a gentleman never puts his own things away himself.”

“Go do it now, dear. A gentleman never expects his mother to do what he has left undone. A true gentleman is more ready to help others than to expect others to help him.”

“Herbert!”—as he was about to rush out again—“here are your books and mittens. Go put them on the shelf.”

“Oh, dear! mother, I’m in such a hurry! Ned Simmons is out there waiting for me. Won’t you put them up for me?”

“My son, I’m half inclined to say that you cannot go out at all, if it leads you to speak that way,” answered Mrs. Doane, in a voice that was firm to sternness.

Herbert didn’t dare to say any more; but, oh, dear!—well, I shouldn’t like to put down just all he thought; but some of his thoughts were like this: “Dear me, what a fuss about nothing! Just books and mittens! Why couldn’t she have left them there? It wouldn’t have been much trouble for her just to put them on the shelf. She wasn’t doing anything more than just sitting there reading, anyway; and she would only just have to take one little step to the shelf, and here I had to come all the way back from the door.” So, grumbling to himself, Herbert raced out again, answering his mother’s injunction to “close the door,” with a bang, and managed to catch up to the boys before they reached the commons for a good game of ball.

In the game, Herbert’s ill humor all passed away; but all of a sudden something happened. What was it? Where was he? Was he going up in a balloon, or coming down? What made him feel so queer? He opened his eyes to see an anxious crowd of boys around.

“Thank goodness, Herbert! I thought you were dead,” said Hal Brick; while Jason Richards stood by, pale, trembling, and silent.

“What’s the matter with me, boys?” asked Herbert, feebly. “I feel awful funny.”

“Well, you look as if you felt awful, but not a bit funny,” answered Hal Brick, whose spirits always came to the surface the moment any trial appeared to be about to pass away.

“What is it, anyway?” asked Herbert, sitting up.

“Why, I threw the ball, Herbert, and it struck you right on the side of the head; and then you dropped down like a shot, and I thought—oh! I thought I had killed you.” And Jason Richards covered his tearful face with his trembling hands.

“Not a bit of it, old boy! I’m very much alive,” said Herbert, with a cheerfulness he did not entirely feel, for his head still ached from the blow. “I’m all right;” and he attempted to rise. He fell back, however, with a face so white and full of pain that Jason Richards was in an agony of fear.

“What is it, Herbert; what is it?” he asked, in trembling, eager tones, as he leaned over him.

“Oh! my foot, my foot!” groaned Herbert.

It was discovered that, in falling, Herbert had sprained one of his ankles. So the two of the boys considered the strongest, and of the best height, made a chair, and carried him, “lady to London,” to his home, as soon as he felt well enough to be moved.

Of course Mrs. Doane was all sympathy and motherly tenderness, and the afflicted boy was put to bed, and nursed and coddled to the best of a loving mother’s ability.

As soon as Aunt Janet heard of the trouble,—dear, kind Aunt Janet, who was always ready to help any one, and who never seemed to have too much to do to “take in one more,” like the street-car—she “came over to stay with Lucy, and to help her nurse the boy.”

Now, Herbert loved Aunt Janet dearly; but he felt miserable, and (shall I confess it?) I think was a little cross-grained, or selfish and thoughtless, anyway.

“Mother, I want a drink.”

“Yes, my son.”

“Where did you get that water, mother? It tastes horrid,” he said fretfully.

“I’ll get you some fresh, dear; I thought this was quite nice.”

“Oh dear! how my head aches, mother! Won’t you read to me?”

“Yes,” she answered pleasantly. “What shall I read?”

“Why, ‘Swiss Family Robinson.’”

“Where is it?”

“Up in my room on the bureau.”

“I could not find it, Herbert,” said Mrs. Doane, returning after a few moments.

“Couldn’t you? Oh, dear! It must be there. Can’t you look again, mother?”

“Yes, I can look again, but it is not there. Try to think where it is.”

“Oh! I guess it is down in the parlor.”

Anxious to do anything to please her nervous, afflicted son, Mrs. Doane again left the nursery for the parlor.

Now, Herbert did not mean to be selfish in all this, but he was.

This time the search proved availing, and Mrs. Doane started to read.

Meantime Aunt Janet sat quietly sewing, having taken up Mrs. Doane’s unworked button-holes that she had been trying all morning to finish between Herbert’s demands on her time and her household duties.

“It’s no use, mother,” exclaimed he, fretfully, after his mother had read a page or two. “My head aches so I can’t listen. Won’t you rub my head?”

Mrs. Doane began the process; and after she had gently rubbed his head for a half-hour, Aunt Janet thought it about time to interfere.

“Here, Lucy, let me come there. You go and rest.”

“No, I don’t want mother to go; I don’t like any one to rub me but her.”

The gratified and affectionate but exhausted mother motioned Aunt Janet away, saying quietly: “I think he’ll be asleep before long,” and kept on with the process. Her prediction was verified; in fifteen minutes more the boy was in a sound slumber, and the weary mother was released.

Mrs. Doane was not ordinarily a spoiling mother; but when her children were sick, she was apt to do a little too much for them, and not permit them to exercise the divine gift of patience sufficiently.

“Now, Lucy,” said Aunt Janet peremptorily, turning her out of the nursery, “go and lie down this minute.”

“If he wakes you will call me, Janet?”

“If he wakes I’ll take care of him,” answered Aunt Janet grimly.

He did wake at the end of an hour, during which time Aunt Janet had done much sewing, and Mrs. Doane much sleeping.

“Where’s mother?” he asked, as soon as he opened his eyes, in a tone which showed he rather resented being left alone with Aunt Janet, after his lordship had distinctly stated that he preferred to have his mother wait upon him.

“She’s lying down.”

“Well I want her.”

“You can’t have her,” answered Aunt Janet coolly.

“Moth—” began Herbert in a loud call, but Aunt Janet’s hand over his mouth prevented the next syllable being heard.

“Are you not ashamed, Herbert Doane? You’re a selfish little [“pig” she was going to say, but prudently changed it, not considering it a good example to set, though she was certainly very much tried] boy.”

“I’m not selfish; I’m sick.”

Aunt Janet waited a moment, and then she said in a different tone:—

“Herbert, I’m very much disappointed in you. I had always thought you were a gentleman. But no gentleman would abuse his mother as you abuse yours;” and she waited for the effect of her words.

“Abuse my mother!” exclaimed Herbert, amazed and startled out of himself.

“Yes, ‘abuse your mother.’”

“How?”

“By making her wait on you the way you do.”

“But I can’t wait on myself.”

“Well, no, perhaps not now; but when you can, does she wait on you the most, or do you wait on her the most?”

“Why, I don’t know.”

“And now that you are unable to do much of anything for yourself, do you make her as much trouble, or as little, as you can?”

To this Herbert had no reply to make. The question answered itself.

“Now I’m not going to argue with you at all; but to-morrow morning I want you to take a paper and pencil as you lie here, and make a little stroke for every time you see mother do something new, especially the number of times she is obliged to leave the room to attend to things, the number of times she is obliged to get up from her chair after she has sat down to sew. It’s an ‘awful nuisance,’ no doubt you think, to have to shut the door after you, or wipe your feet whenever you come in; but who is going to shut it, or take up the mud from the hall after you’ve brought it in? It is ‘perfectly dreadful,’ no doubt you think, to be obliged to put your books and mittens away when—”

“Why, Aunt Janet! Were you—”

“No I wasn’t anywhere; but I know children, and I know you. Well, as I was saying, to put your books and mittens away when you’re in such a hurry. But if you don’t, who must?”

After a little more talk on the subject, Herbert was set to thinking in a way he had never thought before. The impression did not fade the next day, and when, on counting up the marks on Aunt Janet’s piece of paper, he discovered that mother had left her sewing chair ten times during the first hour, and four times the second, to attend to something out of the room (and Aunt Janet asserted afterwards, in confidential conversation, that this was not an uncommon amount), he felt very much ashamed of the way in which he had unnecessarily added to her burdens.

And he made up his mind, from the moment he discovered what mother really had to do, that it should not be necessary to call him back to hang up his satchel again, nor even to wipe his shoes or shut the door—an excellent resolution, of which his mother received the full benefit in the years that followed after.

The boy that watches “what mother has to do,” and not only tries to do all he can to help her, but tries as well not to do things that annoy her, is a gentleman—no fear of that—if he is only ten years old.—Mrs. Emma A. Hewitt, in S. S. Times.