Least said, soonest mended

by Agnes Giberne

Father liked well enough to talk on occasion, but he was never a mischief-maker, and his tongue was not given to wagging ill-naturedly. Father was one of the kindest of men. I never saw him really out of temper in his life; and that's more than many children can say of their fathers. He was a thoughtful man, and he read a deal; and when he could get a sensible listener, he liked to talk about what he had read.

I am afraid I wasn't much of a listener, for I loved best to talk myself. Mother was always trying to check me; not harshly, but in the way of giving advice, "Waste of breath, Kitty, my dear," she'd say. "Keep your breath to cool your porridge." "Mind you, it's 'least said, soonest mended,' in the long run." "What's said can never be unsaid." And often she'd add— "We've got to give an account, by-and-by, of every idle word we speak. Every single idle word!"

But I don't think I paid heed to what she said. Young folks don't? Everybody has to learn out of his own experience, mostly; for experience can't be passed on from one to another like a sixpence. Perhaps mother pushed things a little too far. She saw the evil of careless talk, and she got to have almost a dread of any talk at all. After all, the power of talking is a gift, and it ought to be rightly used, not left to rust. We have influence over others by means of our talk, and we have to see that the influence isn't cast away, nor made to pull in the wrong direction.

I have spoken of neighbours, though there were no neighbours quite close to us. The nearest row of cottages was three minutes off, round the corner of the road that led from the station to the village. Beyond them came shops and a few other houses. Claxton was a small place, very scattered, and the railway-station was small too. My father was the station-master. A good many trains passed, but not many stopped.

Father had a cottage almost close to the line, and our garden was very gay. Flowers did so well with us—I don't know why, unless it was the soil, and his tending.

I was not an over-indulged child, like many only-children. My father and mother would not let me have my own way wrongly, and I was always made to obey. That's something to be thankful for. Half the misery of many grown-up people comes from their never having learnt to submit in childhood.

But though not indulged, I do think I was rather spoilt; that's to say, I was made too much of, and I got to think myself too important, nobody being to blame particularly.

I suppose there's no denying that I was a pretty girl. I had dark eyes, and short curly brown hair, and a colour that came and went at a word. Then mother had trained me to be as particular as a lady about my dress and hair and hands. That does make a difference, to be sure. Nobody can look nice, if she don't keep her hair in order; and the prettiest girl in the world isn't pretty with a smudge on her cheek.

Father used to call me "his little wild rose," because of my colour and my shy manner; and Rupert used to talk of the way in which I dropped my eyes under their lashes.

Rupert Bowman was our ticket-collector. When I was seventeen, which is the time I am chiefly thinking about, he was over nineteen, not tall, but broad and strong, and a perfect slave to me. He had an honest plain face of his own, and a blunt way of speaking, commonly, which I think came from bashfulness. There wasn't a thing I could not make Rupert do, if I chose. He lived near with his widowed mother, and a sister; and he was in and out among us all day. Father liked Rupert ever so!