“But not to prose any more, let me tell you the history of Kitty’s yesterday—one of her days is like the rest, and you will be able to see where we want your help.
“Figure to yourself the three little heads bent over ‘copy-books’ in our cheery schoolroom. Before a line is done, up starts Kitty.
“‘Oh, mother, may I write the next copy—shell? “Shell” is so much nicer than—know, and I’m so tired of it.’
“‘How much have you done?’
“‘I have written it three whole times, mother, and I really can’t do it any more! I think I could do—shell. “Shell” is so pretty!’
“By-and-by we read; but Kitty cannot read—can’t even spell the words (don’t scold us, we know it is quite wrong to spell in a reading lesson), because all the time her eyes are on a smutty sparrow on the topmost twig of the poplar; so she reads, ‘With, birdie!’ We do sums; a short line of addition is to poor Kitty a hopeless and an endless task. ‘Five and three make—nineteen,’ is her last effort, though she knows quite well how to add up figures. Half a scale on the piano, and then—eyes and ears for everybody’s business but her own. Three stitches of hemming, and idle fingers plait up the hem or fold the duster in a dozen shapes. I am in the midst of a thrilling history talk: ‘So the Black Prince——’ ‘Oh, mother, do you think we shall go to the sea this year? My pail is quite ready, all but the handle, but I can’t find my spade anywhere!’
“And thus we go on, pulling Kitty through her lessons somehow; but it is a weariness to herself and all of us, and I doubt if the child learns anything except by bright flashes. But you have no notion how quick the little monkey is. After idling through a lesson she will overtake us at a bound at the last moment, and thus escape the wholesome shame of being shown up as the dunce of our little party.
“Kitty’s dawdling ways, her restless desire for change of occupation, her always wandering thoughts, lead to a good deal of friction, and spoil our schoolroom party, which is a pity, for I want the children to enjoy their lessons from the very first. What do you think the child said to me yesterday in the most coaxing pretty way? ‘There are so many things nicer than lessons! Don’t you think so, mother?’ Yes, dear aunt, I see you put your finger on those unlucky words ‘coaxing, pretty way,’ and you look, if you do not say, that awful sentence of yours about sin being bred of allowance. Isn’t that it? It is quite true; we are in fault. Those butterfly ways of Kitty’s were delicious to behold until we thought it time to set her to work, and then we found that we should have been training her from her babyhood. Well,
‘If you break your plaything yourself, dear,
Don’t you cry for it all the same?