Home Scenes and Home Influence; a series of tales and sketchesArthur, T. S. (Timothy Shay)
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Home Scenes and Home Influence; a series of tales and sketches
Arthur, T. S. (Timothy Shay)
Didactic fiction; Domestic fiction; Family life -- Fiction; Marriage -- Fiction
My poor friend's face was red, and her voice trembling with passion.
With each renewed order for the child to leave the room, she stamped
with her foot upon the floor. Harry, instead of going out as he was
directed to do, kept advancing nearer and nearer, as he repeated his
complaint, until he came close up to where we were sitting.
"Didn't I tell you to go out!" exclaimed his mother, losing all
patience.
As she spoke, she arose hastily, and seizing him by the arm,
dragged, rather than led him from the room.
"I never saw such a child!" she said, returning after closing the
door upon Harry. "Nothing does but force. You might talk to him all
day without moving him an inch, when he gets in one of these moods."
Bang went the door open, and, "I want my top-cord!" followed
in louder and more passionate tones than before.
"Isn't it beyond all endurance!" cried my friend, springing up and
rushing across the room.
The passionate child, who had been spoiled by injudicious
management, got a sound whipping and was shut up in a room by
himself. After performing this rather unpleasant task, Mrs. Martinet
returned to the parlour, flushed, excited, and trembling in every
nerve.
"I expect that boy will kill me yet," she said, as she sank,
panting, into a chair. "It is surprising how stubborn and
self-willed he grows. I don't know how to account for it. He never
has his own way--I never yield an inch to him when he gets in these
terrible humours. Oh, dear! I feel sometimes like giving up in
despair."
I did not make a reply, for I could not say any thing that would not
have been a reproof of her impatient temper. After my friend had
grown calmer, she renewed her narrative about the dinner.
"As I was saying, when that boy interrupted us, I left the kitchen
very much worried, and felt worried all the morning. Several times I
went down to see how things were coming on, but it was plain that
Hannah did not mean to have dinner at the hour. When it was time to
put the meat on to roast, the fire was all down in the range. Half
an hour was lost in renewing it. As I expected, when my husband came
home for his dinner, at the regular time, the table was not even
set.
"'Bless me!' he said, 'isn't dinner ready? I told you that I wished
it at the hour, particularly. I have a business engagement at
half-past two, that must be met. It is too bad! I am out of all
patience with these irregularities. I can't wait, of course.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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