THE DAYS OF PRECIOUS PENALTIES

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10, 10 March 1906, Page 22

THE DAYS OF PRECIOUS PENALTIES

By

MARION HILL

-vr HEN the postman went, Rex W A / Pettison bestirred his rather 1/1/ anemic little legs, and fairly 1 f flew up-stairs to the nursery to share his unwelcome info) na.l ion with his twin sister. • Regina, the has come,” h< announced, not ungrammatically, either, '’ami mamma is already half through it.” “Uh, my good gracious! dear, oh dear!’ wailed Regina, who took all things hard, and who took this thing particularly so. “What kind of'trouble will we get nowY” “It won’t be long before we find out, observed itex gravely, aware that this, though true, was not comforting. "1 lie Privileges of Parenthood*’ was a monthly magazine devoted to the home management of c hildren, ami to their intellectual and moral advancement: ami by its helpful pages Mrs Pettison was at present steering her offspring, pinning her entire faith to its utterances. To speak vulgarly, she s\\allow<*d it whole, not picking ami choosing among its blessings but practising upon the defenceless t wins, each and every hint held out. They knew that'they were being experimented upon, and very much disliked it. They knew. too. the .source of the experiments, and hated the “Privileges’ from cover to cover. The day of its arrival was ahvay- one of unpleasantness. “What was it we got last time?” demanded Regina crossly. Her memory was short—a merciful compensation for the fact that her sufferin'. under educational affliction was exl reme. Rex took things philosophically, but never forgot them. “We had to walk around the block, and then come home and tell what we BOW.” “Oh my. yes.’’ remembered Regina, shmlderingly. She would rather ruminate than talk any day. Genteel conversation. such as she was forced into by her father ami mother, always brought her to hysterics. “And,** continued Rex. “we left off having cooked mush for breakfast, ami had to chew hard on raw wheat—for our teeth, and for our brains—and not wash it down with water, either.” When he remembered, ho did the job completely. “1 didn’t mind that so much.” confessed his sister, “it was like being chickens.”

They spent some further time in remisiscence, and then a summons floated up to them. “Rex! Regina!” called their mother, in sweet, but compelling tones. “Are. my ends on?” demanded Regina, gloomily, turning her back for inspection. Re.x carefully noted that her each braid was still clamped with its necessary bow of ribbon, and so informed her. “Y >u\l better poke that in.” she advised morosely, pointing to liis feet. and he obeyed her by attending to a dangling shoe-st »*iiig. Having thus in some measure guarded against unfavourable criticism, they apprehensively went down-stairs to their nu t her and the "Privileges.” This month it contained, in addition to its usual budget of hints, two‘articles which’appealed to Mrs Pettison as nmguifn ent. These articles were. “Make Confidants of Your Children,” and “Rational Punishment,” and along the lines

of their advisement Mrs Pettison intended to speak at ome. Indeed, wherever possible she used the exact words of the editor. “Come, my little son and daughter,” she said, starting in at once and in a high-comedy voice, as the twins lagginglv approached, “let us have a friendly chat together.” It sounded ominous from the very beginning. To be “friendly” with one’s mother smacked of the terrible, so the twins* eyes bulged with fear and they said nothing. The magazine had made no provision whatever for anything but a joyous receptiveness, and Airs Pettison felt as if she had somehow run <4l* the track, but she was too full of her subject to stop. “We all make mistakes, grown folks as well as children.” she continued, modulating her voice to tender grief—as advised—“and 1 myself have made mistakes—sad ones, sad on£s ” She paused and waited for the sudden look of love and sympathy which she had been told would be hers, but she did not get it. nor anything like it; her humble admission the’n and there lowered her very many degrees in the twins* respect. in their estimation an infallible mother. though a bad thing, was yet bearable. whereas a mistaken mother was a decidedly disgraceful possession. “Perhaps—to make an instance.- resumed Mrs Pettison hurriedly, feeling that each pause was lost ground, •'sometimes when I have punished you I may have been arbitrary. Do you know what ‘arbit rary’ means ?” “Yes,” said Rex promptly. And he did. z “No.’’ said Regina gruff with embarassment. “I will tell you. It means - it means ” she lloundered a little, and Rex looked sorrowful, as if lie expected her to slip, for now that she was “mistaken he did not feel sure of her at any point. She braced iiorself. It means ‘capricious, not just.’ Punishment should always be just. Moreover, it should be rational. Rational punishment never provokes resentment. ft explains itself. Perhaps T have not always been careful to have my punishments explain themselves. At times, you actually may have-questioned my

right to discipline you. Is it not. so?’’ Again she waited for affectionate comment, ami again in vain. Question her rigid ? They had never dreamed of such a thing! The ethics of infancy are simple: if you are good, you get praised; if you are naughty, you mostly get spanked. Why not? It is as plain as daylight. “Rut a mistake may always be corrected,” went on Airs Pettison, confusedly. Only a strong sense of duty kept her at it. She, was not feeling fresh and happy as at the start. The children in the magazine had made sweet little remarks, leading to an exchange of many beautiful thoughts; but the twins did nothing but awesomely gawk at her. “I am going to try pew methods ot punishment. Scolding and whipping are irrational, and therefore useless. Yet wrong-doing must be corrected. But how? A little patient thought will suggest, the penalty, which must be the

logical outcome of the wrong itself. Then it is accepted as inevitable and right even by the sufferer. Shall we try this better way?” She smiled a winsome invitation to them to open their hearts to her, but they had no reply to make. They felt that it would be frightful to say “no,” and indiscreet to lunacy to say “yes,” since this last was a tacit bid for chastisement, and chastisement of an unknown • nature. Silence was best. Persisting bravely with her part, Mrs Pettison put one arm around Rex and the other around Regina, and kissed them ’both. Polite though uncomprehending, Rex returned the kiss; but Regina took it flinching and with eyes shut as if she expected to ger dipped, which was an action loading to false conclusions, Airs Pettison not having the clipping habit. “Go now, dears, and think it over,” she said, really exhausted with having nothing happen which, should have happened. According to the printed articles, the charming conversation should have hallowed a full half-hour, and here it was over as soon as commenced, after having led absolutely nowhere. T'ne twins skimmed from sight as soon as they decently could. Left to herself, Airs Pettison was honest enough to admit that she had rushed into the business without sufficient preparation, and she felt that she would have to elucidate her “talk” by a backing of consistent action. Aleanwhile, Rex and Regina curled up in chairs and brooded over the tiling in the pea>ce of the nursery. They were dazed and depressed. "Have we been bad?” demanded the girl. She could not otherwise account for the plentiful mention of the word “punishment.” “No, I think not.” “A\ hat was the matter, then?''* "Please let me alone.” This satisfied Regina, for she knew that her brother never indulged in throes of thought in vain, always arriving at solution through revery, so she hided his time. And it was not long before-he roused himself, looking brilliant. “■Sister, we aren’t going to get spanked any more ” “Nor scolded ” “No.” But something queer is going to happen ” “What!” “Pm going to find out rmht now.” “How?” “By being bad.” AV hen it dawned upon her that he intended to be wilfully naughty, but nobly, for investigation’s sake, she interested herself to help him out. “What kind of bad are you going to be ?” He gazed around the room searching for inspiration to crime and not finding it. foy his gentle little soul was moral to inanity. But Regina’s eyes glittered hopefully. “lip thpre are some things we mustn't touch,” she murmured in an incidental ■sort of way, but the guile of the serpent lurked beneath the indifferent words, and Regina’s glance rested upon the mantel where stood two Chinese

vases—fat. bulging things, witii four handles apiece. Without so much as a comment, Rex dragged a chair to the mantel,. climbed up, and pushed a vase into space. The crash which it made as it came to pieces on the floor brought Airs. Pettison quickly upon the scene. If the truth is to be told, she was distinctly pleased with so opportune a c-hance to put her new theories into practice, ami she pried not at all into causes, taking a vast deal for granted that was not so. "Aly little son forgot himself and handled something he has been forbidden to touch," sue said, sorrowfully. “Moreover, he was careless as weld as disobedient, and let the pretty vase fall. How must we teach him to remember what he is told and make him feel vexed that he has destroved a thing of beauty?” After some serious consideration she went out of the room, murmuring, “Wait a minute,” and left the twins frightened yet diverted —like patients reading a comic paper in a dentist's ante-room. When she came back she brought with her nothing more awful than a ball of string. A piece of this she slipped through a fragment of vase which chanced to have a handle left intact, and she tied the sinful trophy to Rex’s arm, explaining the while the significance of her punishment by telling him that the constant feel of the broken china would distress ami shame him. and bring him to wish that he had never touched it, while the constant sight of it would grow hateful to him. and depress him with sorrow for his wanton destructiveness. With all this, she entwined very prettily the story of the ■■Ancient Alarriner” and the slain albatross which was hung upon the destroyer's neck, symbolising the weight of sin, and she wound up by telling him that she hoped so to develop his spiritual nature that the mere sense of guilt would soon drag him down more degrading! y than any bit of porcelain tied to his arm. It was really beautifully thought out, and would have been worth money to her if sent to the editor of "Privileges,” but. the twins, know ing they w ere being "improved,” tried to hear as little of it as possible—except that Rex was drawn to "albatross” as something new in fowls. “How do you spell it?” he asked meekly. “A-l-b-a-t-r-o-s-s,” she spelled curtly, and left the room to prevent the arising of any more worthless side issues. For a/, short while Rex stood rigid, with stiff arm extended, while he viewed nis mark of crime from different angles —ami with growing approval. Then he tried walking about, and his pride in it grew as it swung and dangled. He felt it to be not only a pleasantly unusual adornment for a little boy, but a highly entertaining one by reason of the thrilling sound of breaking crockery which it gave out every.time that it knocked against some furniture. He was soon trotting around the room selecting different material against which to bang his vase-portion, in order to enjoy variety of tones. He had not been so amused, so satisfied, so mentally fed and refreshed in a long while; and Regina, the Innocent, the Unpunished, the'Undisgraeed, sat in lonely dejec(,ipa

with nothin" to do but watch his orgy of content. ‘‘Why don't you come and play with me?” at last she asked angrily. “I can’t,” replied Rex. in a wee. sweet voice, as from some fat realm of bliss. “I’m having too much fun with the—the —the albatross.” And he clinked it deliciously against the door-knob. “I’ll get an albatross, tbb.” cried. Regina, maddened by jealousy; and without a minute’s hesitation, she jumped to the chair, and hurled the remaining vase to the floor. Rex’s stupor of amaze, her own unfeigned horror at the actual consummation of the deed made it impossible for her mother to think this disaster anything but another “accident” —for of course Mrs. Pettison heard the second crash, and came in a second time. Consistency demanded that Regina get a bangle, too. but no poetical selection from Coleridge accompanied this seance. ‘•You are a very, very naughty little girl,” said Airs. Pettison sharply, and she tied some china to the culprit with quite angry jerks and with a tighter twist than was at all necessary, for the fragment was small — Regina’s smash had been thorough. “Aline’s a baby albatross,’’ said the smasher complacently, as soon as her mother had left the room. Now that the children were similarly equipped, they hud a lovely time together, ami put their novel toys to every conceivable and inconceivable test. They began to warm up tenderly to punishments. “What shall we smash next?” asked Regina, leaning mentally in the direction of a magnificent Satsuma urn in the parlour. “We’ll—we’ll be bad some other way.’’ authoritatively said Rex. lie had the saner mind, and realised that the limitations of smash had been reached. All sports pall in time, and the twins gradually desisted from their exuberant tracking of furniture, and drew near each other to take hold of hands—a friendly tricks of theirs when weary. The contact, bringing their bits of bric-a-brac together with a clash, flecking a splinter from each, recalled to Regina the game which is played with Raster eggs. “Let’s chip albatrosses,” she said stoically, and sat down on the floor. Nothing averse, Rex sat down, too, and the war was on. Clash followed clash, and chips flew frantically, till finally each combatant came off victorious with but a bracelet of string left. Their mother, who had entered and silently witnessed the contest, deemed it wise to take this disposal of the albatrosses as a matter of course, so she merely made the twins clear up the chips, and then she reminded them that it was time for them to go to their desks; first, to write the usual half page in their copy books, and. second, to hear each other all the geography questions they could think of. Secretly, she was worried, for never until to-day in all their sternly-ordered, meekly-obedient little lives had the twins shown the least trace of naughtiness. She comforted herself with the belief that the worst was now over, for the children, now sedate as dormice, went tractably to work upon their copy books. Reassured, she left them to themselves again. L was the letter to which they were devoting their attention, and the page / Hvas spaced thus: “L! Lady! Led by the right! Lady! L.” It the originator, of the copy had had any hope of casting a moral glamour over his page by means of the phrase. “Led by the right,” that hape was dashed in Regina’s case, for she wrote it. “Leg by the right.” Steals of letters appealed to her as unimportant. After she had laboriously n.-fide a round fat-’body, it w:m all one to her whether she turned it into a “d” or a “g.” Moreover. she had her own line of progress. She never went across. She Went down. She made six ‘L’s,” then six “Lady’s,” then six “Legs,” and so on, and got through in less than no time. “What’s an island?” she demanded peremptorily. As far as she was concerned. it was the hour for geography. Rex, who did all things lovingly and well, was still writing, but he looked up kindly and humoured her. “An island is land surrounded by water,” he said. Then a pained look came on his face as if he loathed the necessity, but he leaned forward, pen in hand, put a blot on Regina’s waist—for the land—and drew a scalloped circle

around it—for the water. He tapped the picture with his pen and repeated his definition. It needs to be impressed that heretofore tin accidental biot no bigger than a pin-point had be n sufficient to set them bt-Ji into sobbing convulsions of fright. As the island grew upon her, Regina had one brief, embryonic spasm, and 1 then—she understood. Rex was again martyrising himself. “What is a lake?” he asked. He had an apt pupil. Regina seized her pen and stirred it around in the ink bottle. “Likes water!” gabbled she (blot on Rex’s shirt i “s’rounded bland.” (Scalloped circle.) “What's a strait?” "A strait”—and here R x sketched upon liis sister’s yoke something resembling a pair of spectacles—“is a channel of water connecting two larger bodies of water. What is a river?” “A river”—said slw\ dithering with delight as she ran a zigzag streak of black lightning down his front pleat—“is water flowing through the land. W’hee! Whats’ a hill?” “A hill,” >aid he. abandoning the pen and dipping his finger in the bottle, "is a low elevation of land.” Here he dabbed a cone-like smudge upon Regina’s shoulder. “What is a mountain?” “Mountain s a high elevator of land!” she shrieked, drunken with joy. Inking her whole hand she streaked him with an "elevator’’ that re died from his beit to his chin. Now was she frenzied indeed, and hissed meaningly. "W hat is an OCEAN?” He took the dare even though he paled under the magnitude of the sin thrust upon him. “The largest body of water,” he said, methodically pouring the entire bottle into Regina’s lap. This naturally concluded the lesson; thme was no none ink. "We had better see about this right away.” he announced in a businesslike, tone. And they sought out their mother. They found her occupied in rereading the article on Rational Punishment.” They little knew how good a thing it was for themselves that she was so occupied—ecu pied. too, so serenely and deeply that she failed to notice their' approach until Rex murmured. "Mamma, something has happened.” Shi? looked up, and. catching sight of their really awful condition, was literally stunned ami dumb-stricken. All she could do was to wave them away from her. When speech• finally returned to her, it was so far beneath the occasion that it sounded tame. out of my sight as quickly as possible.” she begged, "before 1 say or do what I should not. Oh. do go! Later, when we arc all calmer, we will talk over this frightful occurrence; for rest assuied I shall demand a full explanation. Net that your punishment will wait til! th.-ii —no. indeed. I shall attend to that at once, and severely. Listen! I forbid you to change those dsgracoful garments. Aon shall take your outing in them, you shall see visitors in them—if visitors come —you shall go to the supper-table in them, you shall weir them till bedtime, even if your hearts and mine break with humiliation. Now go. Immediately!” When they left the room. Mrs Pettison burst into tears over the problem. ’The twins did not know that, of course, and danced away perfectly happy; if there was one thing they hated worse than another, it was their afternoon raiment of white pique. The stull* was always starched as stiff as tin, and it creased if it was looked at cross-eyed. When creased it was done for. If the twins had the ill-luck to sit on a peach-stone or kneel on a blackberry, they were in the worst sori of a fix. And to think they could wear their nice, comfortable, messy suits all afternoon! To think that they could actually go out in them and tell everything to all the other little boys and girls! It was too good to be true. And why should nut visitors know about it? ’i’he more the merrier. And as for supper—again. why not? Was not their father going to be absent? Of course he was. thank heaven! Yes, really and rin'lly, it was too good to be true. The ensuing hour was positively the happiest they remembered. When they were forced to go out with Catherine, the “help,” it was she who suffered, not they. They si rutted to the utmost. While she chased desperately to have it over and done with. “Such a, holy show!” she kept muttering.

"Why, Catherine, you’ll* not the holy show, we are,*' they “sweetly insisted, but all the saute she hurried them home, and left them to take most of their outing on the front steps. That was not so bad. either, for they could point cut their adornments, in dumb sign, to all their passing ironies. They sat there basking in rare contentment. K\ hen it came to lx* the neighbourhood sr.ppei-time anil. the street grew dull, Rex thought out another ext it uneni. “Sister. I begin to see how this th’ng works, do you?” "What thing works?” "This new punishment. Il works this way—when we do something lad we have to ki?ep on doing it.” “Well?” said Regina, listlessly. “Well, we’ll go now and stoil some jam.” Which they immediately did. It a as not hard to manage, with Catherine making disappearances into the din i»groom to put supper on the tab’c, Of course, discovery was swift, b »J. then, discovery was their aim. "Some bad inge! possesses you.” cried Mrs. Pettison, despairingly, tut still clinging to her ideals. ‘ You th nk you want jam—I’ll prove to you how mistaken you are —come to the a’de and A large dish of jam was > t before them, and their broth was ’.moved. When they undvistood th it they were to help themselves plentifully to jam. tl.vy wondered if they had not fallen into fairyland. Requesting bre id. they were denied it. “Nothing but jam.” said Mrs. Pettison sternly, her sympathetic stomach recoiling from the fearful fate. The twins perceptibly cheered and tucked into tin jam at a great rate. They had aimed at this happiness, but the result exceeded belief. The next course would have been sandwiches of stale bread, sparsely buttered ami served with weak cocoa. This. too. they wen? mercifully spared“Help yourselves to jam.” ordered their mother, in the tone of an ex. eutioner. The twins’ whole beings millowed under the affliction ami they stoved away jam oijoiigh for a long winter. This method was persevired iu dur ng the meal and at each added prohibit a n. the twins cheered further and took mor-' jam. At last. Mrs. P. ttison. fearing that she was becoming barbarous in i er cruelty, offered them forgiveness by saying. "The dessert is <old rice pud ling; you may make your choice Iptveen it and the sickening sweet stull' 1 have forced upon you.” "I’lLtakv jam.” said Rex gently. “Moro jam.” said Regina, the greedy glitter in her eye undimmeil. They ro>e from the table oozing contentment from every pore, and Mrs Pettison wearily kept her s?at to ponder upon the situation. Out in the hall — “Regina, didn’t that jam make you thirsty?” "Aw ’fly.” “Come into the pantry and we’ll open a bottle of grape juice.” But they had been overheard and pursued, and while they were trying to unscrew the cap of the bottle the wrath fell—and the shameless, degrading irrationality of that wrath would have pained the whole editorial stall of "Privileges.” "Bill!” on Regina's ear. and "Baff!” on Rex’s and then they were jerked up by their collars and rattled around in tlib air awhile. That these processes were dangerous to tympanums and spinal lolumns, Mrs. Pettison well kn.?w. Temporarily, however, she failed to remember. "You are a naughty—disobedient — exaspit-at ing — bad-hearted — thieving little pair!” she said, by way of making confidants' of her children. She told them so much mor** about themselves that they could hardly believe it. Th.-y had not leisure to listen to it all. being so very busy attempting to shelter various portions of their anatomy. Sweep! ami Regina foun I liei-self balancing upon her mother’s kn.-e in a swimniing attitude, and—well, she was given a lesson. Swoop! Rex took her place, ami also rccMvdd a lesson. A perf-ctly unpuncitinted . tale of accusations accompanied all this, and “arbitrary” was the last thing thought of by any of the parties. Finally, the twins felt themselves hoist<‘d as upon derricks and swilled along the passage to a dark room when? they were inconsiderately and ungently

dumped, the door being bunged u on them. “And at die n.’\t atom of trouble. I’ll tre.-t you to a double dose of this!” was the sybillic utterance which floa'el in to them. When they had wept tlieniseive. almost to a pulp ami th. ir sobs came a little further apart. Rex's broken voiit crept from somewhere in tiie darkness: "Regina. I think we’d better b* goo,I.” "1 thought it first.” she ILccmiglud And since it was upon her that the' eli.:*tei:ing hand first fell, perhaps she did-