Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1890-07-25
VERMONT PHOENIX, BRATrLEBORO FRIDAY 25
THE HOUSEHOLD


The mother who puts the timd child to
bed, and takes away the light, and goes
down stairs, and leaves him to his coniuring
careless aud Indifferent and disbeeving
or bent on overcoming the mischief forci
bly, is destroying something that one would
think of small worth to her-not only his
nervous fibre, but his love Of hersef and
the day will come when fate will have its
revenge on her in his own Indifference to
her, and she will recognize it, even if he
behave in all outward respects like a duti-
full son. 1t is her part to examine the
matter, to reason with the child, to com
fort him, to see how far it is possible with
him to subdue the fear IL she cannot stay
with him herself she can at least leave the
door open so that he may hear the cheerful
down stairs voices, the hum of life, not to
he shut into his tomb, as the unformulated
thought Of his desperate little mind makes
it, she can leave lamp on the hearth, and
so let there he some light to dispel his
fancies and to keep back the dark and its
unshaped visions. She may regard it as
she is wise either in mother love or human
kindness she will not let the imaginative
and sensitive child suffer more than it
must, remembering that that temperament,
if it has more to enjoy through life than
others, has also much more to suffer
When few nights have failed to bring
calm to the little being out of the expert
ence, and the last going to bed alone is as
bad as the first, and all threats have only
made the matter worse, aud all reasoning
has produced no good result; when he has
tried to conquer, and the effort has left him
trembling as violently as if he had an ague
then it is something not to be overcome
by harsh or rough or peremptory measures,
and the mother should see to it that this
child has some active physical exercise Just
before going to bed that will make his little
body glad of rest, and she would best lie
down beside hin, or find some work that
she can do upstairs till he falls asleep, in
order to afford him the comfort of compan-
ionship and the sense of her embracing love,
and soothe his irritable nerves to repose in
| sJedu Vi TOuslHg Jneln To action. IheSt
nerves would never have been irritable if
she had not insisted on her own way toe
long in the beginning if she had given then
no chance to get on fire, aud then to 20 on
exciting themselves If she had put the
child to bed alone from the very outset Of
his career, so that it was the natural order
of things to him, and he had had the hab
established Of quiet sleep and absence o
fear from the first, in ninety nine cases gu
of a hundred there would never have beei
any trouble of the sort Bnt if through an,
idiosyncrasy of the child, or any remissnes
of her own, the fear has come upon him
she will never in all the years remaining
have greater love Outpoured upon her tha
that child will give her who sees her hover
ing over his pillow, moving about his room
or feels her pressure on the bed beside hir
till the drowsy warmth steals over an
wraps senses and Imagination and all togetf
er, and let's her off again to the duties tina
are less imperative than care Of that child
nerves to the pleasures that are less peai
ant than the love he gives her in return
Huiper'S Bdzdr.