Essay No. 29
"Things we Don't Want"— Spoilt Children
BY
Mrs. E. M. Field
Author of " The Child and His Book,"
Member of Mothers' Union Council, Diocese of London.
(Reprinted by kind bermission from the "Sign.")
How often we catch a bit of someone's conversation in a train or a tram-car, that sets us thinking !
"Well, that's one thing we don't want," a man was saying to his wife as the two talked very earnestly. The child on her lap had just wiped a muddy boot on her dress, unfastened her brooch, and pulled her hat crooked in trying to reach a flower in it. Now he began to tease the father.
"Talk to me, daddy ! What don't we want ? Daddy, what's the thing we don't want ? Daddy-daddy—what is it ?"
He lost patience at last. "Oh, spoilt children ! " said he. The young hopeful's mouth opened for a roar, and his mother producing a peppermint-drop and hastily popping it in, not much to the comfort of her neighbours, only turned the noise to a fretful wailing.
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Now, an old professor with large spectacles was sitting opposite. He seemed to be a German, and very politely he addressed the young mother.
"Madam," he said, "I am much interested. I am writirrg- a book of large size on Man, and with him I am writing of Woman also, and next I come to the Children. Now, of Man and of Woman I have some knowledge, but the Children I have had to observe, and many have been shown to me. Some —that is all, if their parents speak truth—are beauti¬ful, many are clever, some are tall, some are little, some are quiet, some love to make a noise. But never yet have I been able to find one that is spoilt, and that is a very great matter for my book. Will you permit that I visit you and make a study of your little son ? "
It need hardly be said that everyone within hear¬ing tried with more or less success to hide a smile, or that the mother flushed to the very roots of her hair, and cuddled the child up closely (he, by the way, fought with fists and feet), while she murmured into his ear, " Did they say he was spoilt, then, my precious ? The horrid, unkind old man ! "
The young people with the child got out, and the maiden aunt who was sitting in the corner closed her eyes, for she had had a long day. Perhaps she dozed, for soon she seemed to be following the couple home. They went slowly, for first Alfie wanted to walk, then he wanted his mother
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to carry him, then he screamed because he would rather daddy took him, then he wriggled down to walk again; then he fell down in the mud, scraping his knee and tearing his mother's skirt.
At last they were at home and sitting down to tea. The mother had made Alfie bread-and-milk, but he upset it because it wasn't buttered toast; and when the toast was made he did not want that, but some of the cold beef and pickles that his father was having. Perhaps pickles did not quite agree with him, for the mother had to carry him to bed with a pain.
He went to bed with most of his clothes on, because he screamed so over being undressed that his mother gave way about that. And the tea-things could not be washed-up for an hour and three-quarters, since she had to pretend to go to bed herself ; and every time she got up and tried to go back to her work the roars broke out afresh, till at last sleep came.
Somehow the night had passed, and the maiden aunt saw Alfie brought down to breakfast. He looked pale enough, perhaps because of the pickles, perhaps because he had slept in his clothes, and the window was tightly shut all night. Anyway, his mother first made him bread-and-milk, then a cup of cocoa, then she offered him some of her tea and a nice little bit of bacon; but she had at last to start him off to school, after much persuading to go,
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with the little girls from next door, without his having eaten anything—and that was how his name was on the list of breakfastless children at school, and a grave-faced lady, who asked a great many questions, came later in the day to see her about the matter.
Mrs. West broke down then and sobbed bitterly. "I don't know what to do," she said; "he's such a will of his own, he don't mind me. I'm sure when I was a child I minded mother; I used to be told children should be seen and not heard, but I don't know how it is, I can't do nothing with Alfie. I reckon I ought to punish him, but I can't a-bear to make him unhappy."
"Are you making him happy now ?" asked the visitor.
"I've so little to give him, I may as well let him have his own way," wept Mrs. West.
"Then," said the lady kindly, "won't you try to train him so that the way he should go becomes his own way ? Happiness grows beside that path."
• •
The tram-car jerked on a stone, and the maiden aunt opened her eyes to see that she had not nearly reached home yet. When she shut them again she seemed to be standing on a wide, wide plain, and somehow she knew she was in South 'Africa. A party of soldiers in khaki had just
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stopped, hot and tired, on the banks of a turbid, greenish stream. "Boys," said a young officer, "it's death—that's to say, it's enteric—to drink that water as it is. Just make a fire as quick as you can and we'll boil it, and the tea will be all right."
All hands went to work, but there were a few who could not and would not wait, who had never learnt to wait. As babies a comforter had been popped into mouths opened to roar, later on it was a sweet, by and by something stronger; anyway, the self-control which a child's obedience teaches had never been won ; and these filled pannikins at the stream and drank at once. The scene shifted; the maiden aunt saw now a wide hospital tent, some restless, moaning figures on low pallet-beds, others lying very still. "Spoilt children, spoilt lives ! " she said to herself ; and then she heard the name of her own stopping-place called, and she and the professor both got out.
"When I was in Italy," she said, as they walked on together, "I knew a little boy who never got out of bed till his mother had bargained to reward him with so many new toys. All day long he had what he wanted, or else he screamed till nurse and mother gave way. One evening he set to work to cry for the moon, and at last his mother feared for his health. She had never tried to control him, or make him control himself ; she did not know how to begin. Marcello only consented to be quiet when she sat
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down and wrote a letter to the Almighty God in heaven—yes, she did—and asked that the moon should be sent next day by special messenger."
"And was Marcello a happy child?" asked the professor.
"The most miserable I ever knew."
"Madam," said the professor, standing still and looking down through his large spectacles very gravely, "I had begun my chapter wrongly, and I will alter it. I had said, ' There are no spoilt child-ren, the word is only used by unmarried people who do not love children.' Now I will try to tell the world that spoilt children are spoilt people, and that the spoilt are never the happy ones."
"Lookers-on see most of the game," said the maiden aunt. "Can't we teach the players a thing or two? They can't afford to lose this game." She turned into her own quiet room.
To be able to do what we ought, when we ought, whether we happen to want to do it or not—that is a good old test. Will the children of to-day be able to pass it to-morrow ? Let us hope so.
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