Wreaths of Friendship: A Gift for the Young

                      SOMETHING ABOUT CONSCIENCE: 
                         OR MR MASON’S STORY.

Two little boys, Robert and Samuel, were one day assisting the gardener about some flower-beds.  They were rather young to be of much service to the old man, and gave him some trouble, once in a while, by the clumsy way in which they did their work.  Still, they meant to please the gardener, and he ought not to have got out of patience, if they did now and then make a blunder.  Well, he was usually very patient and kind; but that day, for some reason or another, things did not go right with him at all.  Pianos and violins, though they sometimes make sweet music, get out of tune occasionally, and then, no matter what you try to play on them, nothing sounds well.  It is so with men and women too often; and with boys and girls, too, it is to be feared.  At any rate, it was so with Mr Mason’s gardener, at the time I speak of.  He was peevish and fretful, and said some harsh things to Robert, because he accidentally destroyed a fine tulip with his spade.  Robert cried, and said he did not mean to do it.  Then the old man was sorry, but, probably feeling too proud to confess it, he was silent for a long time.  By and by, however, he told Robert that his conscience troubled him on account of his speaking so unkindly, and he hoped the little boy would forgive him.  So you see the gardener was a good man, although he was hasty at that time.  Robert cheerfully forgave him, and things went on a good deal better.  The boys tried to be more careful, and the gardener tried to be more patient.

[Illustration:  THE GARDENER REPROVING ROBERT.]

Robert thought a good deal about the old man’s mention of conscience, and when he saw his father, he asked him what the conscience meant.

Robert’s father liked to have his children make such inquiries, and did all that he could to encourage them in doing so.

“There are two ways, Robert,” said he, “of explaining things.  One is by telling what they are, directly, and the other is by telling what they do.  I find that my children generally like the last of these methods better than they do the first; and I am not sure but, on the whole, it is quite as good as the other.  At any rate, I shall try to describe conscience by pointing out some of its effects.  In other words, I shall tell you a story.  Some twenty-five years ago—­it may be thirty; how time slides away!—­I knew a boy who had one of the kindest of mothers, but whose father had died before his recollection.  I think—­indeed I know—­he loved his mother, though he was sometimes thoughtless, and once in a while disobedient.  One day, in midsummer, when the blackberries were ripe in the woods, and the trout were sporting merrily in the brook, Charles—­for that was the name of the boy—­came running to his mother, all out of breath, and said that Joseph Cone and Charley Corson had come with their baskets and fish-lines, and wanted he should go with them.  ’Oh, such fine times as they are going to have, mother!  Mayn’t I go?  Blackberries are ripe now, and there are lots of them over in Mr Simpson’s woods.  And oh! such splendid trout!  One of the boys caught a trout last Saturday, so big that he couldn’t hardly pull it out of the water!  Oh, I do want to go, mother!  I’ll bring home a fine string of trout—­I know I will.  Ha! ha! ha!’ And Charley danced up and down the room, and clapped his hands, and laughed very loudly at the idea, I suppose, of his outwitting the simple little fish.”

Robert laughed, too, when his father came to this part of the story, and said he thought that was something like counting the chickens before they were hatched.

“Yes,” continued Mr Mason; “but I am afraid that was not the worst of it, by a good deal; for Charles knew well enough that his mother wanted him at home that day, and he ought not to have urged her so hard.  ‘My dear,’ said that kind, indulgent lady, ’I will let you do just as you choose about going.  You know I want you to help me about the house to-day, and I should be very sorry to have you leave me.  But I don’t wish to govern you by force.  I want to see you mind because you love me—­not because you are obliged to.  So I shall not say any more.  Do as you please, this time.’

“Charles thought a moment or two.  He saw plainly enough that there were two sides to the question about going a-fishing that day.  His mother was not very well.  He thought of that; and he thought that if he went, she would have more work to do, and perhaps she would then be quite sick.  His conscience was at work, you see.  ‘Well,’ he thought, ’I guess I will let the trout stay where they are to-day,’ But just then he heard one of the boys say, ’Halloo, Charley! what do you say?  We’re tired of waiting.  Shall we go without you, or will you come along?’

“Well, what do you think Charley did, Robert?”

“Why, he stayed at home, and helped his mother, of course.”

“No, I’m sorry to say that he changed his mind, and started off with the boys.  His conscience said no, but his will said yes.”

“Then he did very wrong.”

“So I think.  But the truth must be told.  Charley took his fishing apparatus, and whistled for his little dog, Caper, and away the three boys ran, toward the brook.

“’Let’s go to the deep hole under the elm tree.  That’s where Bill Havens caught the big trout, the other day,’ said one.

“Bill Havens, as they called him, was one of the most noted fishermen in the place.  I knew him well.  He was always sure to succeed, wherever and whenever he went out with his hook and line.  I have been to this deep hole with Bill Havens, more than once, and have seen him catch half a dozen large pickerel, when I could not, by any of my skill, persuade a single fish to come out of the brook.

[Illustration:  BILL HAVENS AT THE DEEP HOLE.]

“‘But we shall have to cross the brook,’ said Charley, ’and how in the world are we going to do that?  The foot-bridge was swept away by the freshet, you know.’

“’Oh, I’ll see about that.  I know where there’s an old tree that lies clear across the stream.  We can get over on that, just as well as we could over the foot-bridge,’

“And so they started for the old tree, which was to serve them for a bridge.  It had been blown down by the wind, and had fallen across the stream, so that the large end rested on the side where the boys were, while the upper limbs reached the opposite bank.  When the boys got to the tree, they saw that it was not quite so convenient a bridge as they could wish; and Charley Mason, who was not by any means a headstrong lad, and not used to such adventures, said he would rather not attempt to cross it.  But the other two boys laughed at him, and told him not to be a coward; and he finally determined he would venture, if the others succeeded.  They did succeed, and Charley, not without some trembling—­which, of course, made his danger the greater—­prepared to follow.  ’Take care, Charley! take care!  Rather dangerous business, isn’t it?  Cling closely to the tree.  There—­so.  Don’t look down into the water, or you’ll be dizzy.  That’s the way.  Come on, now.  Don’t hang on to that dry limb!  It will break and let you fall into the water, if you do.  How the poor fellow trembles! Plash!  There he goes, I declare!’

[Illustration:  CHARLES CROSSING THE BROOK.]

“Sure enough, Charles had slipped and fallen into the stream! and his companions, so frightened that they hardly knew what they did, took to their heels, and ran as fast as they could toward home!”

“Poor Charley! he was drowned, then?” said Robert.

“No, he managed to get out of the water; but he had a hard time of it, though.  He could not swim very well, at the best; and with all his clothes on, it was as much as he could do to swim at all.  If the river had been a little wider, he never could have got out alone.  As it was, however, by the help of some rocks there were in the brook, he reached the shore, pretty thoroughly exhausted, and not a little frightened.  His zeal for trout-fishing was by this time a good deal cooled off, as you may suppose.  The nearest he came to catching any of those cunning little fellows that day, was when he tumbled into the brook; and then he had something else to think of.

“There he was, alone, wet as a drowned rat, and shivering, partly from cold and partly from fright, as if he had the ague.  Poor fellow!  His conscience began to be heard again, now he had time to think.  He hardly knew what to do; he was ashamed to go home to his mother; and there he stood, for a good while, leaning his head on the fence near the water, the tears all the time chasing each other down his cheeks.”

“I don’t wonder he cried,” said Robert; “but I can’t help laughing to think what a sorry figure he must have made there, on the bank!  And he was going to bring home such a nice string of fish, too!  I wonder if his mother did not laugh when she saw him coming.  Did he stay there, father, shivering and crying, till some body came after him?”

[Illustration:  CHARLES, AFTER THE DUCKING.]

“No, he started for home before any of the neighbors reached the spot where he fell into the river; and, as they missed him on the way, they supposed he was drowned, and searched for his body half an hour or more, till they learned he was safe at home.”

“Well, what did his mother say to him, father?”

“She did not say much, poor woman.  She was not well, as I said before, when Charles left her; and as her servant had gone away for a week, and she had no one but him to assist her in her work, she became very much fatigued; and when she heard that Charles had fallen into the river, she fainted immediately.  She had hardly recovered when the boy reached the house.”

“I think Charles was a very bad boy.”

“Not so much worse than many others, perhaps, as you may suppose.  You judge of the boy’s conduct by the consequences of it.  If he had been successful in his trout-fishing, and no accident had happened to his mother, you would not have thought half as much of his guilt in acting contrary to his mother’s wishes.”

“Certainly not.”

“But the boy would have been just as bad, for all that.”

“I can’t see how, father.”

“Why, the boy, when he was thinking what he would do about going on that fishing excursion, could not have foreseen all that would happen if he went.  Do you think he could?”

“No, sir, not all, I suppose.  But I am sure he was a very bad boy, whether he knew what would happen or not.”

“Yes, no doubt.  But I want you to see exactly where his guilt lay.  It was simply in his not yielding to his mother’s wish, when she so kindly left him at liberty to do as he chose; especially as he knew she was ill, and needed his assistance.”

“Charley deserved a good whipping.”

“Well, he was punished severely.”

“Did his mother punish him?”

“No, for weeks she was too ill for that; and if she had been well, probably she would not have punished him.”

“How did he get punished?”

“By his own conscience.  He felt that he had done wrong, and that made him very unhappy.  He saw, then, that he had been very unkind to his mother, and that his unkindness cost her pain and sorrow.  He would rather have given all his playthings—­every one of his toys—­than to feel as he did then.  Indeed, I think he would prefer the severest punishment from his mother, to the wound which his conscience inflicted.  Do you understand now, my son, what is meant by conscience?”

“I think I do.  When we are sorry for any thing we have done, it is the conscience that makes us feel so.”

“Not always.  Charles was no doubt very sorry he had tried to cross the river on the tree, because he fell into the water, and came near being drowned.  But the conscience had nothing to do with this sorrow.  When we see that we have carelessly or wilfully injured some one—­hurt his feelings, perhaps—­or when we reflect that we have disobeyed God, and feel grieved and sorry on this account, then the conscience is the cause of our pain.  So you see that it is one of the numerous proofs of the wisdom and the goodness of God, that he has given mankind a conscience.  Take care, my son, that you listen to its voice.”