Elsie at Nantucket Part 16

The look he gave her as she raised her eyes half fearfully to his face was very kind and affectionate, though grave and judicial. "I am not angry with you," he said, "in the sense of being in a pa.s.sion or out of patience--not in the least; but I feel it to be my duty to do all I possibly can to help you to be a better child, and noticing, as I have said, for the last two or three days what a wilful, wicked temper you were indulging, I have been considering very seriously whether I ought not to try the very remedy you have yourself suggested, and I am afraid I ought indeed. Do you still think, as you told me a while ago, that this sort of punishment might be a help to you in trying to be good?"

Lulu hesitated a moment, then said impetuously, and as if determined to own the truth though it were to pa.s.s sentence upon herself, "Yes, papa, honestly I do; though I don't want you to do it one bit. But," she added, "I sha'n't love you any less if you whip me ever so hard, because I shall know you don't like to do it, and wouldn't except for the reason you've given."

"No, indeed, I should not," he said; "but you are to stay behind to-night when the others go to the beach."

"Yes, papa, I will," she answered submissively, but with a perceptible tremble in her voice.

Grace and Max were coming to meet them, so there was no opportunity to talk any more on the subject, and she walked on in silence by her father's side, trying hard to act and look as if nothing was amiss with her, clinging fast to the hand in which he had taken hers, while Grace took possession of the other.

"You ought to have three hands, papa," laughed Max a little ruefully.

"Four," corrected Grace; "for some day little Elsie will be wanting one."

"I shall have to manage it by taking you in turn," the captain said, looking down upon them with a fatherly smile.

Violet and some of the other members of their party were still seated where they had left them on the benches under the awning just out of reach of the waves, and thither the captain and his children bent their steps.

Sitting down by his wife's side, he drew Grace to his knee and Lulu close to his other side, keeping an arm round each while chatting pleasantly with his family and friends.

Lulu was very silent, constantly asking herself, and with no little uneasiness, what he really intended to do with her when, according to his direction, she should stay behind with him after tea while the others returned to the beach.

One thing she was determined on--that she would if possible obey the order without attracting any one's notice. Everybody must have seen how badly she had been behaving, but the thought of that was not half so galling to her pride as the danger of suspicion being aroused that punishment had been meted out to her on account of it.

Max watched her curiously, and took an opportunity, on their return to the house, to say privately to her, "I'm glad you've turned over a new leaf, Lu, and begun to behave decently to papa; I've wondered over and over again in the last few days that he didn't take you in hand in a way to convince you that he wasn't to be trifled with. It's my opinion that if you'd been a boy you'd have got a trouncing long before this."

"Indeed!" she cried, with an angry toss of her head; "I'm glad I'm not a boy if I couldn't be one without using such vulgar words."

"Oh, that isn't such a very bad word," returned Max, laughing; "but I can tell you, from sad experience, that the _thing_ is bad enough sometimes; I'd be quaking in my shoes if I thought papa had any reason to consider me deserving of one."

"I don't see what you mean by talking so to me," exclaimed Lulu, pa.s.sionately; "but I think you are a Pharisee--making yourself out so much better than I am!"

The call to supper interrupted them just there, and perhaps saved them from a down-right quarrel.

Lulu had no appet.i.te for the meal, and it seemed to her that the others would never have done eating; then that they lingered unusually long about the house before starting for their accustomed evening rendezvous--the beach; for she was on thorns all the time.

At last some one made a move, and catching a look from her father which she alone saw or understood, she slipped un.o.bserved into her bedroom and waited there with a fast beating heart.

She heard him say to Violet, "Don't wait for me, my love; I have a little matter to attend to here, and will follow you in the course of half an hour."

"Anything I can help you with?" Violet asked.

"Oh, no, thank you," he said, "I need no a.s.sistance."

"A business letter to write, I presume," she returned laughingly. "Well, don't make it too long, for I grudge every moment of your time."

With that she followed the others, and all was quiet except for the captain's measured tread, for he was slowly pacing the room to and fro.

Impatient, impetuous Lulu did not know how to endure the suspense; she seemed to herself like a criminal awaiting execution. Softly she opened the door and stepped out in front of her father, stopping him in his walk.

"Papa," she said, with pale, trembling lips, looking beseechingly up into his face, "whatever you are going to do to me, won't you please do it at once and let me have it over?"

He took her hand and, sitting down, drew her to his side, putting his arm around her.

"My little daughter," he said very gravely, but not unkindly, "my responsibility in regard to your training weighs very heavily on my mind; it is plain to me that you will make either a very good and useful woman, or one who will be a curse to herself and others; for you are too energetic and impulsive, too full of strong feeling to be lukewarm and indifferent in anything.

"You are forming your character now for time and for eternity, and I must do whatever lies in my power to help you to form it aright; for good and not for evil. You inherit a sinful nature from me, and have very strong pa.s.sions which must be conquered or they will prove your ruin. I fear you do not see the great sinfulness of their indulgence, and that it may be that I am partly to blame for that in having pa.s.sed too lightly over such exhibitions of them as have come under my notice: in short, that perhaps if I had been more justly severe with your faults you would have been more thoroughly convinced of their heinousness and striven harder and with greater success to conquer them.

"Therefore, after much thought and deliberation, and much prayer for guidance and direction, I have fully decided that I ought to punish you severely for the repeated acts of disobedience you have been guilty of in the last few days, and the constant exhibition of ill-temper.

"It pains me exceedingly to do it, but I must not consider my own feelings where my dear child's best interests are concerned."

"Is it because I asked you to do it, papa?" she inquired. "I never thought you would when I said it."

"No; I have been thinking seriously on the subject ever since you behaved so badly the day of the 'squantum,' and had very nearly decided the question just as I have fully decided it now. I know you are an honest child, even when the truth is against you; tell me, do you not yourself think that I am right?"

"Yes, sir," she answered, low and tremulously, after a moment's struggle with herself. "Oh, please do it at once, so it will be over soon!"

"I will," he said, rising and leading her into the inner room; "you shall not have the torture of antic.i.p.ation a moment longer."

Though the punishment was severe beyond Lulu's worst antic.i.p.ations, she bore it without outcry or entreaty, feeling that she richly deserved it, and determined that no one who might be within hearing should learn from any sound she uttered what was going on. Tears and now and then a half-suppressed sob were the only evidences of suffering that she allowed herself to give.

Her father was astonished at her fort.i.tude, and more than ever convinced that she had in her the elements of a n.o.ble character.

The punishment over, he took her in his arms, laying her head against his breast. Both were silent, her tears falling like rain.

At length, with a heart-broken sob, "You hurt me terribly, papa," she said; "I didn't think you would ever want to hurt me so."

"I did not want to," he answered in moved tones; "it was sorely against my inclination, I cannot tell you how gladly I should have borne twice the pain for you if so I could have made you a good girl. I know you have sometimes troubled yourself with foolish fears that you had less than your fair share of my affection; but I have not a child that is nearer or dearer to me than you are, my darling. I love you very much."

"I'm so glad, papa; I 'most wonder you can," she sobbed; "and I love you dearly, dearly; I know I've not been acting like it lately, but I do, and just as much now as before. Oh, papa, you don't know how hard it is for me to be good!"

"I think I do," he said; "for I am naturally quite as bad as you are, having a violent temper, which would most certainly have been my ruin had I not been forced to learn to control it; indeed I fear it is from me you get your temper.

"I had a good Christian mother," he went on, "who was very faithful in her efforts to train her children up aright. My fits of pa.s.sion gave her great concern and anxiety. I can see now how troubled and distressed she used to look.

"Usually she would shut me up in a room by myself until I had had time to cool down, then come to me, talk very seriously and kindly of the danger and sinfulness of such indulgence of temper, telling me there was no knowing what dreadful deed I might some day be led to commit in my fury, if I did not learn to rule my own spirit; and that therefore for my own sake she must punish me to teach me self-control. She would then chastise me, often quite severely, and leave me to myself again to reflect upon the matter. Thus she finally succeeded in so convincing me of the great guilt and danger of giving rein to my fiery temper and the necessity of gaining the mastery over it, that I fought hard to do so, and with G.o.d's help have, I think, gained the victory.

"It is the remembrance of all this, and how thankful I am to my mother now for her faithfulness, that has determined me to be equally faithful to my own dear little daughter, though unfortunately I lack the opportunity for the same constant watchfulness over my children."

"Oh, papa, if you only could be with us all the time!" she sighed. "But I never thought you had a temper. I've seen some people fly at their naughty children in a great pa.s.sion and beat them hard; I should think if you had such a bad temper as you say, you'd have treated me so many a time."

"Very likely I should if your grandmother had not taught me to control it," he said; "you may thank her that you have as good a father as you have."

"I think I have the best in the world," she said, putting her arm round his neck; "and now that it's all over, papa, I'm glad you did punish me just so hard; for I don't feel half so mean, because it seems as if I have sort of paid for my naughtiness toward you."

"Yes, toward me; the account is settled between us; but remember that you cannot so atone for your sin against G.o.d; nothing but the blood of Christ can avail to blot out that account against you, and you must ask to be forgiven for His sake alone. We will kneel down and ask it now."

Violet glanced again and again toward the cottages on the bluff, wondering and a trifle impatient at her husband's long delay, but at length saw him approaching, leading Lulu by the hand.