"But they won't—" began Janet.
"Talk of 'won't' about a parcel of babies!" said Mrs. Simmons. "I'll tell you what,—I never yet saw the child, big or little, who couldn't be mastered, if one knew how to do it. You needn't think it's a matter of scolding and storming. The gentler you speak the better, so as only you make a child understand that you mean what you say. But if your children's 'won't' is stronger than your 'must,'—why, all I can say is, you're scarce fit to be a mother. You'd best send them away, and pay somebody else to do the bringing up for you."
"I never could bear to see a child unhappy," said Janet.
"Yes, yes. I know the feeling. It sounds a deal kinder than it really is. So you don't mind bearing to see your husband unhappy, and you let them do just whatever they like, never thinking of the misery they'll be in after life to themselves and others,—and thinking least of all of the Life that's to come, and whether your children are to be happy then or not. That isn't tender-heartedness. It's downright cruelty."
"I hope it'll all come right with them," Janet said uneasily.
"I hope so too, but I don't see as you've much reason to expect it. If you don't train them up now in the way they should go, it isn't very likely they'll take to walking in it by-and-by."
Janet was not offended by Mrs. Simmons's plain speaking. She said again that she would "try;" and when Betsy Simmons was gone she returned indoors.
"Mother, do you like Mrs. Simmons?" asked Janey, in a doubtful voice, as Janet began to undress the baby.
"Yes, she's good and she's true," Janet answered. "She says a sharp word sometimes, but she don't mean it unkindly. Janey, I wonder if you couldn't help me now, by getting Willie ready. I want to have him and Tommy and baby in bed, against father comes back. And you've got to smooth your hair too."
Janey entered into the spirit of the thing with astonishing quickness. Tommy was, as usual, the most troublesome, and Janet kept him in her own hands. He always kicked and cried while being undressed, and generally he gained his will in the shape of repeated delays. This evening, to his infantine astonishment, the kicks and cries were of no avail. Janet was heated and sorry, but she persevered, and, to her surprise, Tommy was no sooner fairly in bed than he turned himself round and dropped asleep,—"sound as a top," Janey remarked.