"And what did she mean by saying that about Rebecca?" I asked.
"Oh, she just meant girls will be girls, that's all!" replied Grandma; "why, mercy! I know all about that. I don't feel like nothin' much more than a girl myself, half the time; and we all have to have our experiences, to be sure. They ain't nobody else can wear 'em for us, but, dear me! the Lord ain't going to let our experiences hurt us; they're for our betterin'."
"And Lute Cradlebow, Grandma?" I said; "what did she mean about him?"
"Oh, she just meant boys will be boys, that's all—especially big ones—but thar'! I've known 'em to get over it a hundred times and not hurt 'em none. If you're always lookin' at human natur' on the dark side, it seems kind o' desp'rit. My first husband, he wasn't a fretful man, but he was always viewin' the dark side o' things. I suppose one reason was he didn't have no father nor mother, and so he kind o' begun life as a took-in boy, but Pollos Slocum, he done very well by him, for he hadn't no children of his own, but his brother—that was Daniel Slocum—he had six. There was two boys and four girls. Mary, she came fust. She was born February nineteenth"——
I was sorry that Grandma's thoughts had drifted into this hopeless and interminable channel.
I had considered carefully what Madeline had said, and determined on a little new advice for my friend, Rebecca. So, the next time we were alone in my room together, I directed the conversation with a view to this end.
"And I wouldn't trust any one, my dear," I said with cheerful earnestness; "then if people prove true, why, it's all the more delightful; and if not, one isn't disappointed; so you can hold the scales quite indifferently in your own hand, and are always master of the situation. Oh, I wouldn't trust people! It would be very nice if this were the sort of world that you could do it in, but it isn't. It's a very deceitful world."
"But I can trust you, can't I?" Rebecca held me with her gravely questioning eyes.
"Well, I don't know;" I began with the determination to be severely true to my text, but the look in Rebecca's eyes hurt me.
"Oh, yes! little girl," I continued, falling into the half-tender, half-playful tone that it was always easiest to assume with her; "of course, you must trust me I Haven't I been a good teacher to you, so far?" And I sought by smiling in the girl's face, to chase the grieved expression away from it. "What I meant was that I wouldn't trust people generally, because it's a selfish world, and such is the depravity of the human mind that if it appears at all convenient, we are apt, you know, to sacrifice other people to our own interests; so, with all the little kindnesses and politenesses which are current in society, it is still the common practice—and if is best that it should be so—to keep, in the main, a sharp look out for 'Number One!'"