“I ’most let Kit drown, too,” said Perk, and related the incident of the swimming pool, which Letty had not heard before.
“Well of course it was naughty to take Kit in swimming when you knew his grandfather did not allow it. But it was not really your fault about his cramp. And besides, Kit had had some lessons in swimming, you say. It was not as if he did not know anything at all about it. Anyway, you make a clean breast of it all to Mr. Baker. That’s the best way, always, and I’m pretty sure that he’ll forgive you and let you stay.”
But Perk could not be cheered so easily, and set about unharnessing the ponies in a glum fashion so different from his usual whistling gayety that even Punch and Judy felt the difference.
Letty went straight to Mrs. Baker and told her how badly Perk felt.
“I hope you and Mr. Baker won’t send him away,” she pleaded. “He’s a good boy, but it will make him reckless and bitter if he should be turned off now. He’ll think that if people make so much of a small matter, there won’t be much punishment left for big wrongs, and that it isn’t worth while to be good. Please, dear Mrs. Baker, don’t think I’m trying to preach to you, but I heard my brother talk that way once—he had been dismissed from a situation for some little carelessness—and although I was very young at the time, I’ve never forgotten how he felt about it. I hope you won’t send Perk away?”
Letty’s cheeks were very red and her voice trembled, half with eagerness in pleading Perk’s cause, and half with fear at her own daring.
“Such a thing never entered my mind, Letty,” replied grandmother earnestly. “Of course we should do nothing so severe. But Jo must be made to realize how serious his wrong-doing of yesterday was. For it is very wrong indeed to neglect or betray a trust, you know, however slight the consequences may prove. And Letty, dear, remember that it is the little things, after all, that count in life. The pennies go to make the dollars and the swift little seconds form years. Think of the infinitesimal animals at work in the sea, adding bit to bit through the centuries to make those wonderful coral islands we read about.
“And it is the same with the naughtinesses in the world. If a wee sin is committed here and another there, and pardoned or overlooked with the thought, ‘oh, that did no harm—it was not really wrong,’ why in time the conscience will become hardened and the first thing one knows, one is in a condition to commit any wicked deed.”
Letty looked up with a serious face, from Mrs. Baker to Mrs. Hartwell-Jones, who had sat quietly by during grandmother’s little homily.
“I never thought before how very great the little things are, Mrs. Baker,” she said. “I hope I can learn to be more careful after this.”