Both boys are fairly patient with
their own gardening operations, but their joy is to "help" me by handing
tools, watering plants, and squirting insecticides, in my society and
under my direction.
Of course I could do it all much quicker by myself, and it has hampered
me this spring, for last season they were too irresponsible to more than
play work a few minutes at a time.
Now I have come to the conclusion that it is their right to learn by
helping me, and that it is the denial of companionship, either from
selfishness or some absurd educational theory, that weakens the force of
home ties later on.
I have been frequently lectured by those older, but more especially "new
mothers" younger than I, about staying with the boys at bedtime until
they grow drowsy. "The baby is put to bed, and if he cries I pay no
attention; it is only temper, not pain, for he stops the minute I speak
to him," they say. I feel the blood rush to my face and the sting to my
tongue always when I hear this.
Not pain, not temper, but the unconscious yearning for companionship, for
mother-love, is oftener the motive of the pitiful cry. Why should it be
denied? The mother bird broods her young in the nest at twilight, and the
father bird sings a lullaby to both. The kittens luxuriously sup
themselves to sleep with the warm mother flesh responding to their
seeking paws. In wild life I know not an animal who does not in some way
soothe her young to sleep.
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