“What is the matter, Freddie?” she asked, anxiously.
“Why,” sobbed the child, “I was just running down the street when the man who stops here on Sundays spanked me and sent me home.” There are many children who have no cause to welcome “the man who stops here on Sundays,” even though he may be counted “a good father.” Very often he “takes a nap,” and all noise must cease for his benefit; or, he cannot read his Sunday paper while they are playing about. He speaks testily to his wife, blaming her that she does not quiet the children. “They have all the week to play,” he complains, “I should think they could keep quiet on Sunday. It is the only day I have to rest, and you ought to see that I am not disturbed.” And the mother, who hasn’t even Sunday to rest, quiets the children in the only way she knows, and everybody is wretched.
As fast as the children grow up they leave home gladly for college or business, and, though they respect and fear “the Head of the Family,” they have no real love for him; they never consult him on their intimate, personal worries or problems, and he many times carries a sore heart behind his seemingly stern manner. He wonders why his children are so ungrateful, when he has spent his whole life toiling for them. In his bitter moments he may even call them monsters of ingratitude; forgetting, as Dickens says, that he is really looking for “monsters of gratitude.” These parents, like everyone else, have it in their power to attract to themselves the affection and the surroundings that they need, and to create a center of repose even in the midst of strife; rest we may attain even amid turmoil; but true repose means that quiet shall spread from us to others.
CHAPTER XLI
UNNATURAL LAWS
So many Gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
When just the art of being kind
Is all this sad world needs.