“I had better go away,” said Bessie: “I feel pretty saucy and I might say something you deserved;” with which she turned away, and ran after Kate and Maggie.
Mr. Temple looked, as he felt, uncomfortable. The joke had proved more serious than he had intended; and the remarks made by his two companions, and their amusement at Bessie’s words, did not tend to make him better pleased with the consequences of his own conduct.
Kate added her reproaches when she returned, after leaving Maggie and Bessie in their father’s care, saying,—
“I had rather, for your own sake, that you had done this thing to any other children than those two, George. They are both so truly just, and have such a high sense of honor, which you have rudely shocked.”
“A child’s sense of honor,” repeated George, rather scornfully. “I am sorry I teased them, and had no idea Maggie would take it so hardly; but I am not troubled in regard to my self. A child’s opinion does not signify much.”
“It does with me,” said Kate, “and I can tell you a story to the point, and which may show you what a child’s sense of honor is worth. I think they sometimes see the right and wrong more clearly than we do.”
“You seem to have great faith in these little friends of yours,” said Mr. Temple.
“Yes,” replied Kate, “I have reason. They have been tried and not found wanting, as you shall hear;” and Kate told the story of the prize composition,—the hopes and fears regarding it, its loss and recovery, and the noble way in which our little girls had acted.
“Capital!” said Charlie, as she ended. “They judge others only by the rules by which their own conduct is guided; and there is a wise saying in an old book we all know of, which we would do well to remember: namely, ‘Take heed that ye offend not one of these little ones.’ I take that to mean, not only that we are to set a good example to them, and that we must so act and speak as not to confuse and disturb their ideas of right and wrong; but also, that whoever purposely hurts or grieves one of them, commits a sin in the eyes of Him who gave them His special care and blessing. Which of us could have calmly borne ridicule thrown upon some cherished work of our own, such as you cast, George, on the simple verses of that shy, sensitive, little Maggie? Poor little poetess! And I honor Bessie, baby though she is, for the way in which she struggled with her temper, and removed herself from the temptation to give way to it, and ‘say something you deserved.’ Could there have been a more severe reproof than that?” and Mr. Maynard laughed again at Bessie’s speech and manner, though he felt that this had become no laughing matter.
“They have both forgiven him now,” said Kate, dryly; “and Bessie made the excuse for him which she usually makes for others who do what she considers wrong, that ‘maybe Mr. Temple had never been taught better, and so didn’t know what was very true and honest, or he wouldn’t have kept Maggie’s verses, when he knew they were hers, for such a very unkind purpose as to tease her.’ ‘And maybe he didn’t know how very bad I felt, and never thought much about doing unto others,’ added Maggie. I cannot believe you meant to be as cruel as you were, George; for you did not know how much Maggie dreads notice drawn upon herself. You see,” she added, playfully, “I have myself so lately learned the lesson how much suffering such thoughtlessness may cause another, that I feel entitled to preach on the subject to others.”