# Growing Up (Vorse)/Chapter 56

ALICE had always felt that if it had not been for the rain, the devil could never have got close enough to tempt her; but the insistent pattering of three days' rain brought it into Alice's mind that time was flying, and in consequence of this Something had to be Done.
That something presented itself in a more and more definite form all the time. The thing that the devil tempted Alice Marcey to do was to corrupt her children's minds by bribing them. More subtly vicious than authoritarianism, rewards and punishment for conduct seemed to the enlightened parents of the young Marceys. Alice had sometimes trifled with this temptation before. It would be a heart of stone that would not give an unexpected reward sometimes, but she tried to make it clear to their minds that these things were not bribes for goodness. All modern parents know that nothing constructive is happening in a young brain which is merely doing a certain sort of work or following a certain line of conduct because the child is going to be paid for it or punished for it. Children should learn their lessons of life from deeper and higher motives than those of gain or pain.
As the days dripped themselves lugubriously to an end Alice felt that peace had to be attained, even if it were attained by so nefarious a means as bribery and corruption. Peace she must have.
She realized gloomily how much more popular a measure bribery was than the sacred rite of taking the children into her confidence. That measure had not only ​been ineffective but had left them lukewarm. The idea of a box of candy—Alice went to that length—to whichever of the two older children kept the stillest, with a special extra bribe to Jamie to stop making what Alice in her moments of enlightenment called his "experiments in Rhythm" and in her moments of darkness called "that unbearable racket," made an instant atmosphere of cheer in the house. She explained to them again in words of one syllable what she wanted. She shamelessly described the box of candy in the most mouth-watering fashion, and returned to her writing.
This scheme might have worked perfectly, but it didn't. The only reason that it didn't was that it just happened not to. And it happened not to right under Alice's window.
It was one of Sara's squawks that sent Alice to the window. Sara was on the ground. Robert was saying:
"There, now you've disturbed Mother! Now I get the candy!"
To the horrors of bribery had been added the indecency of competition.
"You don't get it! It's your fault that I made a noise. You stuck your foot out sideways and tripped me. If he sticks a foot out and I fall and hit my funny bone and cry, it's Robert that's made the first noise, isn't it, Mother?"
"I just didn't think. I didn't mean to trip you up."
"He's got tripping feet; he trips me all the time."
"My foot just went out of itself. I didn't put it. I didn't make any noise."
"Neither of you gets the candy," cried their exasperated mother. "Both of you go right in the house and reflect!"
"Am I going to reflect too?" asked Sara. There were both interest and curiosity in her tone.
​"That's not fair," Robert insisted. "It just did it itself. Sara made the noise," he repeated with obstinacy. "No matter how long you make me reflect, Mother, that's all I'll reflect on."
Reflection had often brought light to Robert's mind. His was a logical and reasonable mind, and in moments of stress Alice had asked him to sit quietly—oh, no, this was not a punishment!—and think over the events that had occurred and reflect as to his share in them. She had not tried reflection on Sara heretofore. Somehow, Sara did not seem to have arrived at the age of reflection, although reflection seemed specially adapted to Robert's temperament from a very early age.
When Alice got down-stairs Sara was already seated in a chair which she had turned toward the wall, in an attitude of deep thought. Alice explained to her the theme for reflecting. She had a talk with reasonable Robert, and asked him to consider that they both had forfeited their right to candy.
When Alice got back to her room all thoughts she had had on Woman and Civics were wilted like up-rooted plants which have lain in the sun. She, also, gave herself up to reflection.
From down-stairs came Sara's cheerful little chirp.
"Mother," it went. "Mother, may I stop reflecting? I've got it all finished."
Alice looked at her watch. Reflection was never prolonged to the line of punishment.
"Why, yes," she called back, "you can stop now. Come and tell Mother what you've reflected."
"I've 'lected," said Sara, beaming; "I 'lected everything. I 'lected that Robert is good and"—here her voice sailed up in a note of triumph—"that we each ought to have some candy because nobody meant anything."
​Alice didn't answer. In her, humor, as well as her thoughts, was dead. Sara looked sympathetically at her mother.
"Are you 'flecting too?" she inquired tenderly.
Alice was. She was reflecting how the mother of three children can come by a Peaceful Day.
She could not see any way out. That she had come to the end of her string, was what reflection had told her, so that evening she put it up to Tom. He rested a contemplative and somewhat menacing eye upon the children.
"If you want peace," he said, "any time after twelve to-morrow you can have it, and all Sunday too. I'll look after them!"