“No, Frankie. Mother wants you to stay in the house this morning. She has something to say to you.”
“But I don’t want to stay, mamma,” and he walked slowly toward the door.
“Frankie must stay.” This was decisive, and he sat down in his chair.
After his mother had finished her work, she took him into the sitting-room, and gave him a seat on a stool by her side.
“Now, Frankie,” she said, “I want you to tell me just what you did and where you went yesterday afternoon.”
Frankie gave a truthful account of his adventures at the creek. Then his mother said, “Did you know you were disobeying your mother, and, more than that, disobeying God?”
“O mamma, I didn’t think, I wanted to go so much,” and Frankie looked as though he wanted to cry.
“I know you wanted to go, but you must do what is right, not what you want to do. I will teach you a verse from the Bible that you must remember whenever you are tempted to disobey your mother. It is this: ‘Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.’ Can you repeat it now?”
After a few trials, Frankie could say it without a mistake, and he seemed to understand it, for, when his mother told him that he could run out and play, he put his arms around her neck and kissed her, saying softly, “I’ll remember, mamma, that God tells me to mind you.”
