Early Impressions.A STORY FOR PARENTS.FOR MERRY’S MUSEUM.
FOR MERRY’S MUSEUM.
A gentlemanand lady, the parents of an only daughter about three years old, residing in one of our southern cities, proposed, a few months since, a visit to the lady’s friends at the north. She was particularly anxious once more to see an aged mother, who, during her absence, had experienced a long and distressing sickness, and whom, considering the distance which separated their residences, she could not hope to see many times more. One day, she told Augusta, her little daughter, of the journey, and inquired how she should like it. Of course, the child was delighted with the project, and from that time it occupied many of her thoughts and much of her conversation. She should see her friends, of whom her mother had made frequent mention, and especially her grandmother, who, of all the rest, was of course an object of the greatest interest. Augusta’s inquiries, about her in particular, were often repeated, and almost daily the question was renewed when her father would be ready to start.
After her usual round of inquiries about the journey and her mother’s friends, Augusta, one day, concluded by saying, “My grandmother will be glad to see me—don’t you think she will, mother?” “Certainly,” replied the mother. “Don’t you think she will be very glad to see me?” “Yes,” said the mother, “she will almost eat you up.”
The reply was inconsiderate, but who has not heard it a hundred times? Nothing more common—but it sunk deep into the heart of the child, and from that time, though she continued daily to talk of the contemplated journey, it was with diminished joy, and sometimes with positive reluctance. The idea of being devoured, and by one with whom she had associated so many ideas of tenderness and love, preyed, as it was afterwards discovered, upon her imagination, and nearly annihilated her hitherto happy anticipations. She frequently spoke of her grandmother’s devouring her, and on one occasion gave her father a pretty serious practical idea of the manner in which she expected her aged relative would proceed. She began by telling him what her mother had said—that her grandmother loved her so well that she would eat her up. “When she sees me, she will doso,” said Augusta—applying her sharp little teeth to his cheek, which brought the blood to the surface, and at the same time sent a pang to the extremities of his frame—“she will doso!”
The time set for their departure at length arrived, and Augusta and her parents, in a few weeks, reached the place of their destination. From motives of convenience, the grandmother had, some months before, left her own residence, and was at lodgings in the village of W——. Consequently, the parents of Augusta sought quarters at a friend’s in the immediate neighborhood.
After a few hours’ rest, a call upon the grandmother was proposed, and Augusta was to accompany her parents. But she did not wish to go. “Why, my daughter,” inquired the mother—“do you not wish to see your dear grandmother?” Augusta was silent. “You were delighted,” continued the mother, “with the idea before you left home—what has changed your mind?” Augusta made no reply—but she did not wish to go. Thinking that her reluctance was the offspring of a childish whim, or at most the effect of timidity at meeting one who, notwithstanding her relationship, was indeed a stranger, but which would be removed in a single half hour’s acquaintance, she insisted upon her going.
A walk of a few minutes brought them to the residence of this object of love and tenderness to the mother, but of distrust and terror to the daughter. They were ushered into her presence. The meeting of the younger and of her more aged mother was tender and mutually affecting. They embraced each other after the lapse of years, and each imparted and each received a kiss of friendship and affection. Tears flowed in copious streams, if not along the cheeks of her aged mother, down those of her daughter.
Augusta, young as she was, was an intent and interested spectator of the scene. She watched every look—marked every action—weighed every word. Her own time of being welcomed soon came, when the caresses of the grandmother were transferred from the daughter to the grand-daughter. She shuddered in the embrace—and her eyes, generally large and brilliant, rolled more widely and wildly; but she escaped the anticipated mastication, and at length breathed more at her ease!
Augusta was delighted, as she bounded forth from the gate into the path that led back to her lodgings, and was as much inclined to expedite her return, as she had been slow and reluctant in going.
Up to this time the intensity of her feelings was unknown, and even the nature of them was scarcely if at all suspected. But the secret was gradually developed, and at length the parents were able to explain many a circumstance and many a declaration in regard to Augusta’s change of feelings towards her grandmother, which, perhaps, with more consideration, they might have explained before, but which had been set down rather to the whim of the child than the unguarded expression of the mother.
On reaching her quarters, a young lady, to whom the casual mention had been made that Augusta expected her grandmother would eat her up, said toher—
“Well, Miss Augusta, your grandmother, it seems, didn’t eat you up.”
“No, she didn’t eatme,” said she, “but she tried to eatmother.”
Some circumstance at the moment intervening, the conversation was interrupted, but on the following day, it was renewed by Augusta herself, who, approaching her mother, said:
“Mother, what did grandma’ do to you yesterday?”
“She kissed me, my dear.”
“She didn’t kiss you mother—shebityou.”
“No, my daughter, you mistake, she did not bite me, but she kissed me affectionately.”
“Shedidbite you, mother—I’m sure, I saw her, and she made you cry.”
“My daughter—why!”
“You said, mother, one day when we were at home, that grandmother would eatmeup, but she tried to eatyou.”
The grandmother, as already intimated, had kissed her daughter fondly—with a mother’s ardor. Augusta saw her lips impressed on the mother’s cheek, and the tears starting fast, and rolling down; and she mistook the kiss for a bite, and thought those tears of joy were tears of pain. The whole mystery now vanished. “She will love you so much as to eat you up,” misconstrued, had been for weeks and months a sort of death-note sounding in the child’s imagination. This story, however improbable it may seem, is literally true, and may show how careful of early impressions, a parent should be.
C. G.