Mrs. Primmins trembled like a leaf.
“For fun!” said I, hanging my head,—“just to see how you’d look, papa; and that’s the truth of it. Now beat me, do beat me!”
My father threw his book fifty yards off, stooped down, and caught me to his breast. “Boy,” he said, “you have done wrong: you shall repair it by remembering all your life that your father blessed God for giving him a son who spoke truth in spite of fear! Oh! Mrs. Primmins, the next fable of this kind you try to teach him, and we part forever!”
From that time I first date the hour when I felt that I loved my father, and knew that he loved me; from that time, too, he began to converse with me. He would no longer, if he met me in the garden, pass by with a smile and nod; he would stop, put his book in his pocket, and though his talk was often above my comprehension, still somehow I felt happier and better, and less of an infant, when I thought over it, and tried to puzzle out the meaning; for he had a way of suggesting, not teaching, putting things into my head, and then leaving them to work out their own problems. I remember a special instance with respect to that same flower-pot and geranium. Mr. Squills, who was a bachelor, and well-to-do in the world, often made me little presents. Not long after the event I have narrated, he gave me one far exceeding in value those usually bestowed on children,—it was a beautiful large domino-box in cut ivory, painted and gilt. This domino-box was my delight. I was never weary of playing, at dominos with Mrs. Primmins, and I slept with the box under my pillow.
“Ah!” said my father one day, when he found me ranging the ivory parallelograms in the parlor, “ah! you like that better than all your playthings, eh?”
“Oh, yes, papa!”
“You would be very sorry if your mamma were to throw that box out of the window and break it for fun.” I looked beseechingly at my father, and made no answer.
“But perhaps you would be very glad,” he resumed, “if suddenly one of those good fairies you read of could change the domino-box into a beautiful geranium in a beautiful blue-and-white flower-pot, and you could have the pleasure of putting it on your mamma’s window-sill.”
“Indeed I would!” said I, half-crying.
“My dear boy, I believe you; but good wishes don’t mend bad actions: good actions mend bad actions.”