THE SPOILED BOY.
If there ever was a boy who needed a dose of the old-fashioned medicine called “oil of birch,” it was Tommy Sprout. He had scowled and fretted till his face looked like a winter-apple toward spring, all shriveled, and spotted, and wrinkled. The moment Tommy sat down to table, before the rest of the family had a chance to get settled in their chairs, Tommy would begin this fashion: “I say Ma” (Tommy pronounced it “Mha,” through his nose), “I say mha, give me some milk, quick!”
Then his “mha,” instead of sending him away from the table, as she should have done, would say,
“Presently, my son; wait a few minutes, till I have poured out the coffee!”
“I whon’t whait, I say, mha, I whon’t whait; so there, now;” and Tommy would catch hold of his mother’s arm and jerk the coffee all about. “Come now, mha, gim’ me my mhilk, quick!”
Then his mother would stop pouring out the coffee,no matter how many older persons than Tommy were waiting for it, and give him his milk, which he would drink down, hardly stopping to breathe, making a noise like a little pig who is sucking his corn out of a trough. Then he would set down his cup, wipe his mouth on his jacket sleeve, catch hold of his mother’s elbow, and say, “Mha, give me an egg!”
“Wait my son, till I can fix it for you.”
“No I won’t; I want to fix it myself; I say, give me one.”
“Oh, Tommy, what a boy you are; well, take it, then;” and his mother would give him an egg.
Then Tommy would begin to pound the shell with his tea-spoon, and pretty soon it would break, and the egg would fly all over him, and all over the table-cloth, while Tommy tried to ladle it up with his tea-spoon. Then he would cram a great wedge of bread and butter into his mouth, and before it was half swallowed, he would ask his “mha” where the hammer was, “’cause he and Sam Gill were going to make a prime box;” and when he had found out where it was, he would jump up and fly through the door, leaving it wide open, and his mother would get up and shut it, and say for the hundredth time, “Did you ever?”
One day Tommy was sitting astride the garden-gate,playing horse, when a lady came up to call on his mother. Tommy sat still, and never offered to let her pass in.
“Let me come in, my dear, please,” said the lady.
“Get up, Dobbin, get up, old hoss,” said Tommy lashing the gate with a willow switch, without answering the lady.
“Let me pass, will you, dear?”
“No, I won’t; I’m playing hoss; you may just go round to the back gate.”
So the lady went round to the back gate, wetting her feet in the dewy grass. Tommy’s mother was quite surprised when the lady appeared suddenly before her kitchen window, where she was making cake, instead of ringing at the front door, as visitors always did; and when she found out how it was, she said again, “Did you ever?”
Tommy went on lashing his “hoss.”
Tommy was a great cry-baby; though he was very fond of plaguing other people, he was not quite so fond of being teazed himself; if a boy did but point at him, he would run screaming in to his mother like a mad bull, and she would hug him up, and wipe his great red face with her pocket-handkerchief, and give him a piece of frosted cake to comfort him.
“Did you ever?”
Well, you can imagine what sort of a man such a boy would make, when he grew up. When he was twenty, he got married, and brought his wife home to his mother’s to live; his father had been dead many years. Ah, then the poor old lady, his mother, reaped the bitter fruit of the seed she had sown. Tom ordered her round like a servant; sitting with his feet up in a chair, while she limped up-stairs and down to wait upon him. Poor old lady; she saw too late the sad mistake she had made; and how cruel had been her kindness to Tommy. By-and-by she died; Tom’s wife had been driven off long before by her husband’s bad conduct, and now he was all alone at the old farm-house. Then he was taken with a shocking rheumatism in all his limbs; he could not even so much as lift a finger to help himself; he had no friends now to come in and comfort him, because he had made all his acquaintances dislike him; he had nobody but the doctor, and “old Maggie,” whom he hired to come and make his tea, and there he lay on the bed groaning and swearing. Oh! it would chill your blood to hear him—you, whom I hope, never take the dear and holy name of God in vain. Nobody pitied him, because, they said, “he had been so bad.”
One Sunday Tom lay in bed groaning; the sun streamed in through the half-closed shutters, and the little motes were swimming round in the sunbeams; the window was partly open, and the scent of the clover blossoms and new-mown hay floated in on the summer air. Sabbath-school was over, for the little children were singing their parting hymn; and this was what they were singing:
“Abide with me! fast falls the eventide;The darkness thickens; Lord, with me abide;When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!“Swift to the close ebbs out life’s little day;Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;Change and decay in all around I see,Oh, Thou who changest not, abide with me!”
“Abide with me! fast falls the eventide;The darkness thickens; Lord, with me abide;When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!“Swift to the close ebbs out life’s little day;Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;Change and decay in all around I see,Oh, Thou who changest not, abide with me!”
“Abide with me! fast falls the eventide;The darkness thickens; Lord, with me abide;When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!
“Abide with me! fast falls the eventide;
The darkness thickens; Lord, with me abide;
When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!
“Swift to the close ebbs out life’s little day;Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;Change and decay in all around I see,Oh, Thou who changest not, abide with me!”
“Swift to the close ebbs out life’s little day;
Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and decay in all around I see,
Oh, Thou who changest not, abide with me!”
Very sweet were those little childish voices; very sweet were the words they sang. It was a long, long time since Tom had shed a tear; but he did so now. Poor, wicked, lonely Tom! and long after the childrens’ eyes were closed, like flowers, in sleep, as he lay awake, that night, the words came to him, again and again, “Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!”
I told you that none of Tom’s acquaintances wantedto go near him, because he was so bad. Oh, is it not well that God does not feel so toward us, sinners? that He pities us because we are so bad and wicked? and that when every body forsook poor bad Tom, He drew near to him, in the voices of the dear little children, softening his icy heart, as the sun melts the snow? What else could have made Tom willing to linger and to suffer, longer or shorter, as God willed it? What else made him ask old Maggie’s pardon for his oaths and rough words to her? What else could have made him so lamb-like, those two long, painful years, before Death came to set the spirit free, from his worn-out body? None, during all that time, ever heard a complaint from the lips once so full of curses; but often, in the night-time, as the traveler passed the old farm-house, he would stop to listen to these words, from poor sleepless, but happy Tom:
“Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!”
“Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!”
“Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!”
“Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!”