"5th. To bear disappointments cheerfully.
"There, I think that will do. They are all hard rules except the fourth. I do not keep them well myself, my dear children. No one can, without constant watchfulness and prayer for help from above; but you can try, will you?"
"I will, mamma," said Helen, in a low, earnest tone, her blue eyes filling with tears.
"Yes, mamma, I will try. I can't be a very good boy, as you know. I get so tired of being good sometimes, that I feel like jumping over the house to get the badness out of me, instead of sitting down quietly and thinking about my duty, as papa says I must. When papa locked me up in his dressing room last summer, and I kicked the door as hard as ever I could, which made him call out that I should stay there two hours longer, I was mad enough, I tell you! but I did not cut my name with a knife on his rosewood bureau _because_ I was angry. It was because I was almost crazy with doing nothing but think what a bad boy I was. That made me worse, you see. The best way to punish me is to see you crying about my conduct. I can't stand that," and the boy put his arms round his mother's neck, and kissed her fondly.
"My dear boy," said his mother, returning the caress, "there is One whom you grieve more than me. I wish you would think oftener of that. I know that different children require different sorts of punishment, and as neither your father nor I approve of beating you like a dog, and you say that shutting you up with nothing to do only makes you worse, I shall advise him the next time you are naughty, to send immediately for a load of wood, and make you saw it all up into small pieces, or take you where some house is building and order you to run up and down a long ladder all day with a hod of bricks on your shoulder, or hire you out to blow the big bellows for a blacksmith. How do you think you would like that?"
"I had a great deal rather run after the fire engines, to put the fire out. That's the kind of work I would like. Every body screaming, and pumping, and playing streams of water--twenty firemen rushing up ladders, pulling old women and cats out of the windows, and somebody inside pitching out the looking glasses and crockery to save them! I wish our house was on fire this very minute, so I could pull you and Helen out, and save all the furniture. That would be the greatest fun in the world!"