The young wife had been at first bewildered by all the misfortunes, and by the rapidly increasing family that she had to manage, totally inexperienced as she was, almost single-handed.
Childish resentment followed, but only for a short time. This young husband of hers, who had become grave, and old, and one-purposed, before he was twenty-four, was doing all man could do: she could blame nothing but their own wilfulness. Ill health and the dragging years brought apathy to her; she went through the ceaseless duties mechanically; she bathed and dressed her children, and mended their [62] ]clothes when she had time; she cooked and dusted; she ate and slept.
But after Richie’s birth she had an illness that kept her helpless and a prisoner for six months. She lay in a private hospital in Sydney, for Dr. Wise dare not risk home-nursing for her in such a household as theirs was. He himself could only leave his practice to see her once a fortnight, for, apart from lost time, it cost over a pound for the railway-ticket; the children were brought to her twice only during all that time, for the heavy nursing had entirely emptied the family purse.
And during those long quiet months a sense—almost a terror—of her responsibilities was born in Mrs. Wise’s soul.
These five boys of hers—who would grow into men and help to make or mar the world—what was she doing to help them grow as they should? Sometimes she would wake in the night, a cold perspiration breaking out all over her poor little face at the thought of difficult Clif grown to manhood and going off, with swinging steps, down that hill whose descent is so easy. She felt so weak, so helpless; five little girls she perhaps might have managed; but five boys, with boys’ curious, rough, untractable natures—she trembled at the thought of going back to them.
When she rose from her bed at last, and the days of convalescence came, she crept to a book-shop one day, and with her veil down, and a strange trembling [63] ]hesitancy in her speech, asked if they had any books about training children. The man brought her Kindergarten Studies; The Youth’s Physical Manual; Recreation for the Young; The Care of the Child in Sickness and in Health.
But she turned the leaves feverishly, there was no help for her there.
“A book on the training of their—their moral characters, is what I want,” she said almost in a whisper, and after a long hunt the man found three dusty paper-covered books: Human Buds; Souls and Minds of Children; and Training and Education of Boys.
And these were the works she took back with her to Sunnymeade, to make life a harder problem than ever for herself.
Human Buds made a fine art of the training of children, and seemed to take for granted absolute wisdom and patience on the mother’s part. Mrs. Wise made her eyes red and her heart weary over the things in it she had left undone that she ought to have done. “Never correct a child while you are angry,” it said; “wait for calmness, and let mature reflection guide you as to the best punishment best fitted for the fault and for the offender.” In another place: “Beware how you crush the frail wings of a child’s imagination; but beware also how you foster the growth of them, for these Fancy Flights lead sometimes, in later life, to a strangely perverted sense of Truth and Honour.”