Because he was allowed to sit up a little later than usual on that evening, Alfred wanted to do so at another time. When his mamma said,
“Alfred, take the lamp, and go into the bed-room,” he would hesitate and linger, as if he only obeyed his mamma because he was obliged, and not because he loved to.
One morning Alfred’s mamma said,
“I am afraid my little boy has forgotten his old text, ‘Children, obey your parents.’”
“Why, mamma,” said Alfred, “I think I do always obey you.”
“But you do not obey me directly; and you do not always seem to like to do what I tell you. When I call you to me, you do not run quickly. And lately, when I have told you to go to bed, you draw up your face, and behave as if you went because you must, and not because you loved to do what your mother desires. Now that is not the way that God would have little children behave. He tells them to honor their parents. Children should always obey willingly, and not stop to ask for a reason, when they are commanded to do anything.”
Then Alfred’s papa, who had been reading in the room, but who had heard what mamma had said to Alfred, said,
“I will tell you a story, Alfred, which I read when I was a very little boy.”
“O, papa!” said Alfred, “did you use to read stories when you were a little boy, and did you like to have stories told you as I do now, and did you have a good papa to tell them to you, as I have? Or perhaps your mamma told them to you.”
“You ask a great many questions in a breath, my little boy,” said his father; “but I will try to answer them. I did love to read stories when I was a little boy, and I did like to have them told to me; but my papa was always too busy to tell me stories, and my mamma was dead; so I had no one to tell me stories, as you have.”