Lewie.

by Cousin Cicely.

Preface.

It seems to be thought that a preface or introduction of some sort is absolutely necessary to a book; why, I do not know, unless it be that it looks rather abrupt to begin one's story without a word as to the why or wherefore of its being written. This in the present case can be said very shortly.

The princ.i.p.al events in the following story, the loved and petted child being, as it seemed, given back to life in answer to the mother's importunate cry; the indulgence under which he grew up, and the fatal consequences of that indulgence upon a temper such as his; are taken from real life, and may be used as sad warnings to those who shrink from the present trouble and pain, of rightly training the little ones G.o.d has given them.

The story of the Governess is a true one in every particular; names only being altered; I believe there are none remaining now whose feelings will be pained by this sad history being made public, so far as this little book may make it so, but there are one or two I know, and perhaps more, now living, who will smile if the chapter ent.i.tled "Ruth Glenn"

meets their eyes, when they remember the disturbed nights years ago at a certain city boarding school. If she to whom I have given this name should ever see these pages, I hope she will forgive me for thus "telling tales out of school," in consideration of the high station to which by my single voice I have raised her, and the pleasant memory she leaves behind.

Many other little scenes and incidents interwoven in, the story, are from life.

And now I can only close my preface as I have closed the book, in the earnest hope that it may have the effect of leading some mothers to train rightly the little shoots springing up around the parent tree, restraining their wandering inclinations, and teaching them ever to look and grow towards Heaven.

THE AUTHOR.

I.

Little Agnes.

"And she, not seven years old, A slighted child."--WORDSWORTH.

"What _is_ it Lewie wants? Does he want sister's pretty book?"

"No!" roared the cross baby boy, pointing with his finger to the side-board.

"Well, see here, Lewie! here is a pretty ball; shall we roll it? There!

now roll it back to sister."

"No-o-o!" still screamed Master Lewie, the little finger still stretched out towards something on the side-board which he seemed much to desire.

"Here is my lovely dolly, Lewie. If you will be very careful, I will let you take her. See her beautiful eyes! Will Lewie make her open and shut her eyes?"

"No-o-o-o!" again shouted the fretful child, and this time so loud as effectually to arouse his youthful mamma, who was deep in an arm-chair, and deeper still in the last fashionable novel.

"Agnes!" she exclaimed sharply, "cannot you let that child alone? I told you to amuse him; and instead of doing so, you seem to delight in teazing him and making him scream."

Again the little girl tried in various ways to amuse the wayward child.

He really was not well, and felt cross and irritable, and nothing that his little sister could do to please him would succeed. With the utmost patience and gentleness she labored to bring a smile to her little brother's cheek, or at least so to win his attention as to keep him from disturbing her mother. But the handkerchief rabbits, and the paper men and women she could cut so beautifully, and which at times gave little Lewie so much pleasure, were now all dashed impatiently aside. One by one her little playthings were brought out, and placed before him, but with no better success. Lewie had once seen the contents of a beautiful work-box of his sister's, which stood in the centre of the side-board: at this he pointed, and for this he screamed. Nothing else would please him; at nothing else would he condescend to look.

"Oh, Lewie! darling Lewie! play with something else! Don't you know Aunt Ellen gave sister that pretty work-box? and she said I must be so careful of it, and Lewie would break all sister's pretty things."

Again Master Lewie had recourse to the strength of his lungs, which he knew, by past experience, to be all-powerful in gaining whatever his fancy might desire, and sent forth a roar so loud as once more to arouse the attention of the novel-reading mamma; who, with a stamp of the foot, and a threatening shake of the finger, gave the little girl to understand that she must expect instant and severe punishment, if Lewie was heard to scream again.

Still Lewie demanded the work-box, and nothing that the patient little Agnes could do would divert his attention from it for a moment. The little angry brow was contracted, and the mouth wide open for another shriek, when little Agnes, with a sigh of despair, went to the side-board, and, mounting on a chair, lifted down her much-valued and carefully-preserved treasure, saying to herself:

"If Aunt Ellen only _knew_, I think she would not blame me!"

And now with a shout of delight the spoiled child seized on the pretty work-box; and in another moment, winders, spools, scissors, thimble, were scattered in sad confusion over the carpet. In vain did little Agnes try, as she picked up one after the other of her pretty things, to conceal them from the baby's sight; if one was gone, he knew it in a moment, and worried till it was restored to him.

Finally, laying open the cover of the box, he began to pound with a little hammer, which was lying near him, upon the looking-gla.s.s inside of it; and, pleased with the noise it made, he struck harder and still harder blows.

"No, no, Lewie! please don't! You will break sister's pretty looking-gla.s.s. No! Lewie must not!" And Agnes held his little hand. At this the pa.s.sionate child threw himself back violently on the floor, and screamed and shrieked in a paroxysm of rage; in the midst of which, the threatened punishment came upon poor little Agnes, in the shape of a sharp blow upon her cheek, from the soft, white hand of her mother, who exclaimed:

"There! didn't I tell you so? It seems to be your greatest pleasure to teaze and torment that poor baby; and you know he is sick, too. Now, miss, the next time he screams, I shall take you to the north room, and lock you up, and keep you there on bread and water all day!"

Agnes retreated to a corner, and wept silently, but very bitterly, not so much from the pain of the blow, as from a sense of injustice and harsh treatment at the hands of one who should have loved her; and the mother returned to her novel, in which she was soon as deep as ever. At the same moment, the looking-gla.s.s in the cover of the work-box flew into fifty pieces, under the renewed blows of the hammer in Master Lewie's hand.

The little conqueror now had free range among his sister's. .h.i.therto carefully-guarded treasures; her bits of work, and little trinkets, tokens of affection from her kind aunt and her young cousins at Brook Farm, were ruthlessly torn in pieces, or broken and strewed over the floor. Agnes sat in mute despair. She knew that as long as her mother was absorbed in the novel, no sound would disturb her less powerful than Lewie's screams, and that all else that might be going on in the room would pa.s.s unnoticed by her. So, wiping her eyes, she sat still in the corner, watching Lewie with silent anguish, as he revelled among her precious things, as "happy as a king" in the work of destruction, and only hoping that he might not discover one secret little spot in the corner of the box where her dearest treasure was concealed.

But at length she started, and, with an exclamation of horror, and a cry like that of pain, she sprang towards her little brother, and violently wrenched something from his hand. And now the piercing shrieks of the angry and astonished child filled the house, and brought even Old Mammy to the room, to see what was the matter with the baby. Mammy opened the door just in time to witness the severe punishment inflicted upon little Agnes, and to receive an order to take that naughty girl to the north room, and lock her in, and leave her there till farther orders.

Agnes had not spoken before, when rebuked by her mother; but now, raising her mild blue eyes, all dimmed by tears, to her mother's face, she said:

"Oh, mamma! it was papa's hair!--it was that soft curl I cut from his forehead, as he lay in his coffin, Lewie was going to tear the paper!"

But even this touching appeal, which should have found its way to the young widow's heart, was unheeded by her--perhaps, in the storm of pa.s.sion, it was unheard; and Agnes was led away by Mammy to a cold, unfurnished room, where she had been doomed to spend many an hour, when _Lewie was cross_; while the fretful and half-sick child, now tired of his last play-thing, was taken in his mother's arms, and rocked till he fell into a slumber, undisturbed for perhaps an hour, except by a start, when the tears from his mother's cheek fell on his--tears caused by the _well-imagined_ sufferings of the heroine of her romance.

All the time Mammy was leading little Agnes through the wide hall, and up the broad stairs and--along the upper hall to the door of the "North Room," the good old woman was wiping her eyes with her ap.r.o.n, and trying to choke down something in her throat which prevented her speaking the words of comfort she wished to say to the sobbing child. When they reached the door of the room in which little Agnes was to be a prisoner, Mammy sat down, and taking the child in her lap she took off her own warm shawl and pinned it carefully around her, and as she stooped to kiss her, Agnes saw the tears upon her cheek.

"Why do you cry, Mammy?" she asked, "mamma has not scolded you to-day, has she?"

"No, love."

"Are you crying then because you are so sorry for me?"

"That's it, my darling, I cannot bear to lock you up here alone for the day and leave you so sorrowful, you that ought to be as blithe as the birds in spring."

"Mammy, do you think I deserve this punishment?"

"No, sweet, if I must say the truth, I do not think you ever deserve any punishment at all. But I must not say anything that's wrong to you, about what your mamma chooses to do."

"Then, Mammy, don't you think I ought to be happier than if I had really been naughty and was punished for it. Don't you remember Mammy the verse you taught me from the Bible the last time Lewie was so fretful and mamma sent you to lock me up here. I learned it afterwards from my Bible: hear me say it:--"

'For what glory is it if when ye be buffeted for your faults ye take it patiently; but if when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with G.o.d.'

"Now, Mammy, I did try to be patient with Lewie, and I gave him everything I had, but I could not let him destroy that lock of papa's hair. I am afraid I was rough then, I hope I did not hurt his little hand. Mammy, do you think mamma loves me _any_."

"How could anybody help loving you, my darling!"

"But, oh! Mammy, if I thought she would ever love me as she does Lewie!

She never kisses me, she never speaks kind to me. No, Mammy, I do not think she loves me; but how strange it is for a mother not to love her own little girl."

"Well, darling, we will talk no more of that, or we shall be saying something naughty; we will both try and do our duty, and then G.o.d will bless us, and whatever our troubles and trials may be, let us go to Him with them all. Now, darling, I must leave you."