Chapter 3 Home Discipline
Chapter 3
Home Discipline
In Lucy’s infancy, her mother often used to say, “This child will become something, either good or bad; I don’t know which.” For even when she was a very little girl, she revealed a proud, sensitive, and moody temper, hard to understand and hard to control. Great strength and tenderness of affections adorned the wayward childhood. Without these, there would have been all roots and branches and no flowers. Her delight was to wander by herself in lonely places, to sit musing and dreaming away the hours that other children spend playing, and to venture into and court danger and mystery.
No stranger could have met the child in her wanderings, seen her sitting thoughtfully by the fireside, or watched the solemn face she wore at church on Sundays, without noticing and remembering her. The depth and intensity the mother saw in her face often made her tremble. “Will she grow up to be a good child?” used to be the question. As years advanced, it more often was, “Will she be a happy one?” One cannot say what she would have become if she had remained an only child and continued in her deeply introspective habits.
But as years passed, other children were added to the family, and the inner life of this sensitive girl received many a shock, and her delicate nature was wounded at a thousand points. The mother now did not have time to ask, “How shall I train Lucy?” Work around the home and with the children took over and forced Lucy from the imaginary world to the actual, and tampered with every dark thought and poetic longing. For many years she brooded over and lamented this fate, and tried to disentangle herself from the cares and duties in which she was involved. But in time this discipline accomplished for her that which prosperity never has, and the morbid soil on which discipline was exercised bore fruit both rich and rare. The sunshine lies on the mountaintop all day and lingers there latest and longest in the evening. Yet the valley is green and fertile, and the mountaintop is barren and unfruitful.
On the morning after the conversation with her father, Lucy rose early and opened her window, enjoying the pure fresh air for a few minutes. The stillness of this early hour, broken only by the songs of cheerful birds, went down into her very heart. She would gladly have dreamed away hours in contemplation of the scene before her, but life called her to something besides dreams. It called with a shrill, boyish voice, “Lucy! Lucy Grant! Mother says, won’t you come down and wash my face, and Tom’s face, and all our faces?”
She ran down and performed those necessary acts with so much more than ordinary gentleness and patience, that the children were quite docile for her.
“I wish you’d always wash me,” said Tom. “Rebecca is so slow and Hatty doesn’t half wash me. She’s always in such a hurry.”
“Shall I take the baby, Mother?” she asked pleasantly.
“You may, dear, for a few minutes, and I’ll see about breakfast. Baby’s getting more teeth, I think. He was very restless all night.”
“I’ll have him tonight, then,” said Lucy.
“Oh no, I won’t let you. I can’t have you deprived of sleep.”
Lucy took the baby, smoothed down his little rumpled nightgown, and went to the doorstep where she seated herself and tried to read from a book drawn hastily from her pocket. Seeing the book, the baby squealed with delight and reached down toward it with a speed that nearly threw him from Lucy’s arms. She held her book at arm’s length, still trying to read, until baby, tired of reaching for it, began to cry. Lucy felt irritated. “Why couldn’t you let me have a little peace?” she said, returning the book to her pocket. She began to walk back and forth with the child.
It was a warm, damp morning. The baby was a big, heavy boy, constantly in motion like most boys his age. He twisted himself this way and that. One moment he bent backward, and she saved him from a fall by a desperate grasp at his feet; the next, he threw himself half over her shoulder, climbing over her face as if her features were made for his special benefit and pleasure. Lucy felt weary and unable to join in with his life and spirits, and besides that, she was afraid she had been very impatient, if not angry, about her book. “Oh, God! Help me to be patient!” she whispered. Again and again, and yet again, as she continued her walk, she repeated the words until patience came.
At that moment, Rebecca came out to look for them. “Give him to me now,” she said. “I’m sure your arms must ache. Besides, Mother wants you.” Lucy went in and found breakfast nearly ready.
“Hatty hasn’t come down, though I’ve called her twice,” said her mother. “Just run up and tell her to come directly, will you dear?” Lucy went and found Hatty standing in her nightgown before the little mirror, fixing her hair.
“Mother says she called you twice, Hatty,” she said.
“Well, I can’t help it. I’m hurrying as fast as I can. What does she want, do you know?”
“Breakfast is nearly ready and the table isn’t set.”
“Oh, is that all? Well, you set it for me just this once? I’ll do as much for you some time.” She curled and re-curled her hair at her leisure until she was startled by her mother’s voice.
“Hatty, do you know Lucy is setting the table?” she asked.
“Yes, Mother, she said she would just this once. Setting a table is no great hardship, is it?” she asked, fancying her mother looked displeased.
“No, dear, that in itself is no hardship. But all our happiness depends on regularity and method, and I wish very much you would attend to your own share of the work, and not so often throw it off on Lucy.”
“Well, I will next time, Mother,” said Hatty “and I’ll hurry down now.”
Not until breakfast was on the table, however, did she make her appearance, and then she came in looking so fresh, so smiling, so pretty, that not one of the family felt like frowning on her.
“We must take her as we find her,” thought her mother; and found her very beautiful and charming.
Since it was Saturday, the day was as full of care and labor as it could hold. The baby insisted that at least one of them be devoted solely to his pleasure, and would not have thought the united attentions of the whole family were out of place under the circumstances. The children had a half-holiday and were playing about the house with all conceivable clamor. There were Sunday garments to be gotten in order and the usual Saturday baking. Lucy had not one moment of leisure. Never in her life had she so longed for a few hours for reflection. Once or twice, in the course of the day, she caught a kind and sympathizing glance from her father’s eye. More than once or twice a loving word, warm from her mother’s heart, put life into her own. So the day wore on, as days will, until it had worn itself into twilight, and its heat and labor were past and gone. Her father stood in the open doorway and she went to him.
“This has been a busy day,” he said.
“Very busy,” she answered. “And, Father?”
“What, dear.”
“How can I be a Christian when there is so much to do?” He did not answer her for a moment but seemed to look for something in the little garden before them. Soon he said, “Do you see that vine climbing up there by the wall? It holds the stones and sticks for support, and makes them help it. Just so you must make your daily tasks and cares help you. Take fast hold of them and climb up by their means.”
“That would be very hard.”
“Yes, I know. But it is the only way. And God will help you.”
“Instead of being a help, they have been a hindrance all day,” said Lucy.
“That is because you’re not looking at them in their true light. You may be sure of one thing: God Himself has placed you in your present circumstances, and it is He who appoints for you your daily tasks. Now, is it possible to conceive that a Being of so much wisdom and goodness would place you amid duties whose tendency is to draw you away from, rather than toward Himself?”
Lucy sighed. She felt a little puzzled and did not quite understand what her father was saying.
“Reflect on it as you have leisure,” he said, “and pray over it, and gradually you will understand it.” He wished her goodnight, and she went up to her little room. Truly little it was, and poorly furnished, yet within its friendly seclusion she had sought and found God. And as she now knelt and communed with Him, what did it matter whether the walls that enclosed that blessed spot were low and whitewashed, or high and lofty and adorned with tapestries?