So he rose, and began to walk away, saying,
“Well, Nathan, I mean to go and tell mother, that you won’t let me have my beetle.”
Then Nathan, whose conscience secretly reproved him for what he was doing, pulled the beetle round from behind him, and threw it down upon the floor, where Rollo had been sitting. This was wrong. It was a very ill-natured way of giving it up. If he was satisfied that he was wrong, he ought to have handed it to Rollo pleasantly. Instead of that, he threw it down, with a sullen look, and sat still.
Then Rollo, thinking that it was now no longer necessary to go and trouble his mother with the difficulty, began to return. As he came back, he said, in a kind and soothing tone,
“Now, you are a good boy, Nathan. That is right—to give me back my beetle. Now I will let you split again, some time.”
But Rollo was mistaken in supposing that Nathan was a good boy. Boys are not good until their hearts are right. When a child has something which he ought not to have, it is not enough for him to throw it down upon the floor, sullenly, because he is afraid to have his father or mother told that he has got it. He ought to give it up pleasantly, and feel that it is right that he should do so. If Nathan had said to himself, “I ought not to keep this beetle, for it is not mine—it is Rollo’s; he made it, and he has been kind enough to lend it to me, and now I ought to be willing to give it back to him pleasantly again;” and then had given it to him with a pleasant countenance,—that would have been really being a good boy. But to throw it down in a pet, because he was afraid to have Rollo complain to his mother, was very far from being like a good boy.
However, it was very kind in Rollo to speak soothingly and pleasantly to Nathan; though, if he had reflected how much goodness depends upon the state of the heart, he would not have supposed that Nathan was yet a good boy. In fact, when he saw that Rollo was coming back again, and was not going to his mother, after standing still, looking quite sullen for a moment, he suddenly stooped down, seized Rollo’s knife, and ran off with it out into the yard.
Rollo instantly pursued him, calling out, “Nathan! bring back my knife; Nathan! Nathan! give me my knife.”
Nathan, however, ran on, though Rollo ran the fastest, and was rapidly overtaking him; and just at the instant before he reached him, Nathan’s foot tripped; he fell, and as he threw forward his hands to try to save himself, they came down upon the ground, and his forehead struck the corner of the knife blade. He immediately screamed out with pain and terror. Dorothy, alarmed by his cries, came out, took him up in her arms, and carried him into the house.
She took him to the table, and began to bathe the wounded forehead in cold water. This was what she always did when the children got cut or scratched, or hurt in any such way. It prevents inflammation. She saw that Nathan was not hurt much, though he continued to cry very loud. His crying was, however, partly from pain, and partly from vexation.