Parents and children

by Charlotte M. Mason

The uproar subsided a little, but when Mrs. Belmont laid her hand on his shoulder to raise him, the boy sprang to his feet, ran into her, head-foremost, like a young bull, kicked her, beat her with his fists, tore her dress with his teeth, and would no doubt have ended by overthrowing his delicate mother, but that Mr. Belmont, no longer able to endure the disturbance, came up in time to disengage the raging child and carry him off to his mother’s room. Once in, the key was turned upon him, and Guy was left to “subside at his leisure,” said his father.

Breakfast was not a cheerful meal, either upstairs or down. Nurse was put out; snapped up little Flo, shook baby for being tiresome, until she had them both in tears. In the dining-room, Mr. Belmont read the Times with a frown which last night’s debate did not warrant; sharp words were at his tongue’s end, but, in turning the paper, he caught sight of his wife’s pale face and untasted breakfast. He said nothing, but she knew and suffered under his thoughts fully as much as if they had been uttered. Meantime, two closed doors and the wide space between the rooms hardly served to dull the ear-torturing sounds that came from the prisoner.

All at once there was a lull, a sudden and complete cessation of sound. Was the child in a fit?

“Excuse me a minute, Edward;” and Mrs. Belmont flew upstairs, followed shortly by her husband. What was her surprise to see Guy with composed features contemplating himself in the glass! He held in his hand a proof of his own photograph which had just come from the photographer’s. The boy had been greatly interested in the process; and here was the picture arrived, and Guy was solemnly comparing it with that image of himself which the looking-glass presented.

Nothing more was said on the subject; Mr. Belmont went to the City, and his wife went about her household affairs with a lighter heart than she had expected to carry that day. Guy was released, and allowed to return to the nursery for his breakfast, which his mother found him eating in much content and with the sweetest face in the world; no more trace of passion than a June day bears when the sun comes out after a thunderstorm. Guy was, indeed, delicious; attentive and obedient to Harriet, full of charming play to amuse the two little ones, and very docile and sweet with his mother, saying from time to time the quaintest things. You would have thought he had been trying to make up for the morning’s fracas, had he not looked quite unconscious of wrong-doing.

This sort of thing had gone on since the child’s infancy. Now, a frantic outburst of passion, to be so instantly followed by a sweet April-day face and a sunshiny temper that the resolutions his parents made about punishing or endeavouring to reform him passed away like hoar-frost before the child’s genial mood.

A sunshiny day followed this stormy morning; the next day passed in peace and gladness, but, the next, some hair astray, some crumpled rose-leaf under him, brought on another of Guy’s furious outbursts. Once again the same dreary routine was gone through; and, once again, the tempestuous morning was forgotten in the sunshine of the child’s day.

Not by the father, though: at last, Mr. Belmont was roused to give his full attention to the mischief which had been going on under his eyes for nearly the five years of Guy’s short life. It dawned upon him—other people had seen it for years—that his wife’s nervous headaches and general want of tone might well be due to this constantly recurring distress. He was a man of reading and intelligence, in touch with the scientific thought of the day, and especially interested in what may be called the physical basis of character,—the interaction which is ever taking place between the material brain and the immaterial thought and feeling of which it is the organ. He had even made little observations and experiments, declared to be valuable by his friend and ally, Dr. Steinbach, the head physician of the county hospital.

For a whole month he spread crumbs on the window-sill every morning at five minutes to eight; the birds gathered as punctually, and by eight o’clock the “table” was cleared and not a crumb remained. So far, the experiment was a great delight to the children, Guy and Flo, who were all agog to know how the birds knew the time.

After a month of free breakfasts: “You shall see now whether or no the birds come because they see the crumbs.” The prospect was delightful, but, alas! this stage of the experiment was very much otherwise to the pitiful childish hearts.