Page:Pacific Monthly volumes 9 and 10.djvu/146

96 voice promised, "Me drow up be dood did."

And the Colonel saw and was happy, too, for it was a fixed belief of his that children could be raised without corporal punishment. He believed children could understand reason, and whenever he was at home and encountered his wife leading one to the bathroom, he invariably whispered: "Can't you reason with him?"

One day, not long after the water episode on the lawn, the Colonel, coming home, spied his little daughter on the parking by the ditch, and a commotion of some kind going on. Quickening his steps to a run. he soon understood. Teddy-boy, lying flat on his stomach, was splashing his hands and arms in the water, Helen holding to one of his sturdy legs, while he beat a tatoo on her streaming face with the other, the buttons of his shoe catching in her curls and jerking her head up and down with cruel regularity. She tugged in vain to pull the stout little fellow away, crying: '*Te'-boy! Te'-boy! Mamma 'pank oo! I tell Mamma. I hate to. I hate to. T des dot to. Boo, hoo! Te'-bov not tick He'n's pace!"

In spite of her pitiful cries, Ted continued to splash and kick.

The Colonel was just in time. "Teddy, Teddy-boy! Hasn't papa told you never, never to go near the ditch ? Now papa's going to spank you this time, so you'll never touch the water again."

Ted's eyes filled and his little boy-face quivered as papa carried him into the house. Helen trotted close after, her curls torn and her face criss-crossed with scratches from Ted's shoes — but she was not crying now.

In their short lives the Colonel had never punished either one. He had just been their great big playfellow, their pony, their bear, their bow-wow. Ted was terrified when papa carried him directly to the bath-room. Helen had slipped in, unnoticed by the Colonel till her little voice piped, "Papa-daddy, me fisper oo."

"Well, what is it, Helen?" and he stooped for the little arms to encircle his neck.

"Papa-daddy, tan't oo weason wif Te'-boy? Not fip Te'-boy."

If you're a father and have had the backbone of your reason and your intentions broken in similar fashion, you'll understand. Don't ask me what the Colonel did. What would you do?

After this the children were again put on their honor and allowed to play along the parking as well as on the lawn.

The mother instinct was born in Helen the day the nurse showed her her baby brother, and though she herself could not speak a word plainly, and was just learning to manage her little feet, her sole interest was the little, bottle-fed, wriggling thing in the blue and white basket. As both grew, this mother-feeling in the little girl grew pathetically strong. Mamma Grace fostered it by telling her baby daughter how much she needed her to help look after baby brother, and how much she trusted her to keep him from getting hurt, especially to keep him away from the ditch.

This last worked a great hardship on the little three-year-old, for she loved the splash of the water more than