第17章 NAUGHTY CHILDREN AND FAIRY TALES(1)

ALTHOUGH the children of an earlier time heard a great deal of theological discussion which meant little or nothing to them,there was one thing that was made clear and emphatic in all the Puritan training:that the heavens and earth stood upon firm foundations--upon the Moral Law as taught in the Old Testament and confirmed by the New.Whatever else we did not understand,we believed that to disobey our parents,to lie or steal,had been forbidden by a Voice which was not to be gainsaid.People who broke or evaded these commands did so willfully,and without excusing themselves,or being excused by others.I think most of us expected the fate of Ananias and Sapphira,if we told what we knew was a falsehood.

There were reckless exceptions,however.A playmate,of whom Iwas quite fond,was once asked,in my presence,whether she had done something forbidden,which I knew she had been about only a little while before.She answered "No,"and without any apparent hesitation.After the person who made the inquiry had gone,Iexclaimed,with horrified wonder,"How could you?"Her reply was,"Oh,I only kind of said no."What a real lie was to her,if she understood a distinct denial of the truth as only "kind-of"lying,it perplexed me to imagine.The years proved that this lack of moral perception was characteristic,and nearly spoiled a nature full of beautiful gifts.

I could not deliberately lie,but I had my own temptations,which I did not always successfully resist.I remember the very spot--in a footpath through a green field--where I first met the Eighth Commandment,and felt it looking me full in the face.

I suppose I was five or six years old.I had begun to be trusted with errands;one of them was to go to a farmhouse for a quart of milk every morning,to purchase which I went always to the money-drawer in the shop and took out four cents.We were allowed to take a "small brown"biscuit,or a date,or a fig,or a "gibral-tar,"sometimes;but we well understood that we could not help ourselves to money.

Now there was a little painted sugar equestrian in a shop-window down town,which I had seen and set my heart upon.I had learned that its price was two cents;and one morning as I passed around the counter with my tin pail I made up my mind to possess myself of that amount.My father's back was turned;he was busy at his desk with account-books and ledgers.I counted out four cents aloud,but took six,and started on my errand with a fascinating picture before me of that pink and green horseback rider as my very own.

I cannot imagine what I meant to do with him.I knew that his paint was poisonous,and I could not have intended to eat him;there were much better candies in my father's window;he would not sell these dangerous painted toys to children.But the little man was pretty to look at,and I wanted him,and meant to have him.It was just a child's first temptation to get possession of what was not her own,--the same ugly temptation that produces the defaulter,the burglar,and the highway robber,and that made it necessary to declare to every human being the law,"Thou shalt not covet."As I left the shop,I was conscious of a certain pleasure in the success of my attempt,as any thief might be;and I walked off very fast,clattering the coppers in the tin pail.

When I was fairly through the bars that led into the farmer's field,and nobody was in sight,I took out my purloined pennies,and looked at them as they lay in my palm.

Then a strange thing happened.It was a bright morning,but it seemed to me as if the sky grew suddenly dark;and those two pennies began to burn through my hand,to scorch me,as if they were red hot,to my very soul.It was agony to hold them.I laid them down under a tuft of grass in the footpath,and ran as if Ihad left a demon behind me.I did my errand,and returning,Ilooked about in the grass for the two cents,wondering whether they could make me feel so badly again.But my good angel hid them from me;I never found them.

I was too much of a coward to confess my fault to my father;Ihad already begun to think of him as "an austere man,"like him in the parable of the talents.I should have been a much happier child if I bad confessed,for I had to carry about with me for weeks and months a heavy burden of shame.I thought of myself as a thief,and used to dream of being carried off to jail and condemned to the gallows for my offense:one of my story-books told about a boy who was hanged at Tyburn for stealing,and how was I better than he?

Whatever naughtiness I was guilty of afterwards,I never again wanted to take what belonged to another,whether in the family or out of it.I hated the sight of the little sugar horseback rider from that day,and was thankful enough when some other child had bought him and left his place in the window vacant.

About this time I used to lie awake nights a good deal,wondering what became of infants who were wicked.I had heard it said that all who died in infancy went to heaven,but it was also said that those who sinned could not possibly go to heaven.I understood,from talks I had listened to among older people,that infancy lasted until children were about twelve years of age.Yet here was I,an infant of less than six years,who had committed a sin.

I did not know what to do with my own case.I doubted whether it would do any good for me to pray to be forgiven,but I did pray,because I could not help it,though not aloud.I believe Ipreferred thinking my prayers to saying them,almost always.