When this was eaten, still more was demanded, and peremptorily refused. Crying was resorted to, but without effect, though it was loud and deafening. Finding this unsuccessful, the spoiled urchin determined to help himself. As soon as his mother's back was turned, he clambered up to the table and seized the jar containing the preserves. In pulling it over far enough to get his spoon into it, the balance of the jar was destroyed, and over it went, rolling off upon the floor, and breaking with a loud crash. At the moment this occurred, Mrs. Stanley entered the room. Her patience, that had been severely tried, was now completely overthrown. She was angry enough to punish her child, and feel a delight in doing so. Seizing him by one arm, she lifted him from the floor, as if he had been but a feather, and hurried with him up to her chamber. There she whipped him unmercifully, and then put him to bed. He continued to cry after she had done so, when she commanded him to stop in a voice that he dared not disobey. An hour afterward, when much cooled down, she passed through the chamber. She looked down upon her little boy with a feeling of repentance for her anger and the severity of her punishment. This feeling was in no way mitigated on hearing the child sob in his sleep. The mother felt very unhappy.
So much for Mrs. Stanley—so much for her tenderness of feeling—so much for her warm-blooded system. Its effects need not be exposed further. Its folly need not be set in any plainer light.
Some weeks afterward she was spending an afternoon with Mrs. Noland. Her favourite topic was the management of children, and she introduced it as usual, inveighing as was her wont against the cruelty of punishing children—especially in cold blood, as she called it. For her part, she never punished except in extreme cases, and not then, unless provoked to do so. Unless she felt angry, and punished on the spur of the moment, she could not do it at all. During the conversation, which was led pretty much by Mrs. Stanley, a child, about the age of Charley, came into the parlour. He walked up to his mother and whispered some request in her ear.
"Oh no, Master Harry!" was the smiling, but decided reply.
The child lingered with a look of disappointment. At length he came up, and kissing his mother, asked again, in a sweet, earnest way, for what he had been at first denied.
"After I said no!" And Mrs. Noland looked gravely into his face.
Tears came into Henry's eyes. But he said no more. In a moment or two he silently left the room.
"Mrs. Noland! How could you resist that dear little fellow? I declare it was right down cruel in you."
The eyes of Mrs. Stanley glistened as she spoke.
"It would have been far more cruel to him if I had yielded, after once having said 'no'—far more cruel had I given him what I knew would have injured him."