MISUSED TIME

New Zealand Tablet, 14 October 1909, Page 1637

MISUSED TIME

'I don't believe,' said Mrs. Green on day, 'that John is learning much at the school where he goes. I think - you ought to see after him a little. He never studies a lesson at home.' * ' Mr. Elden has the reputation of being one of our best teachers^ His school stands high,' replied Mr. Green. ' That may all be,' said Mrs. Green. ' Still, I really think you ought to know, for yourself, how John is getting along. Of one thing lam certain : he does not improve in good manners nor good temper, in the least. And he is never in the house between school hours, except to get his meals. I wish you would require him to be at the store during the afternoons. School is dismissed at - 3 o'clock, and he ranges the streets with other boys, and goes where he pleases from that time until night.' ' That's very bad ' — Mr. Green spoke in a concerned voice — ' very bad. And it must be broken up. But, as to having him at the store, that is out of the question. He would be into everything, and keep me in hot water all the while. He'd like to come well enough, , l ' do not doubt; but I can't have him there.' ' Couldn't you. set him to doing something ?' . ' I might. But .1 haven't time to attend to him, Margaret. Business is business, and cannot be interrupted.' Mrs. Green sighed, and then remarked : ' I wish you would call on Mr. Elden, and have a talk with him about John.' ' I will, if you think it best.' 'Do so, by all means. And besides, I would give more time to John in the evenings. If, for instance,- you de-" voted an evening to him once a week, it would enable you to understand how he is progressing, and give you a conrtrol over him not now possessed.' ' You are right in this, no doubt, Margaret.'. But reform went not beyond this acknowledgment. Mr. Green could never find time to see John's teacher, nor feel himself sufficiently at leisure, or in the right mood of mind, to' devote to the boy even a single evening. And thus it went on from day to day, from month to month, and from year to year, until, finally, John was sent home from school by Mr. Elden with a note to his father, in which idleness,, disorderly conduct, and vicious habits were charged upon him in the .broadest terms. The unhappy Mr. Green called immediately upon the teacher, who. gave liim a more particular account of his son's bad conduct, and ' concluded by saying that he was unwilling to receive him back into his classes. From the second school at which John was entered, he was dismissed within three months for bad conduct. He was theu sent to school in a distant city,, where^ ' removed from all parental restraint and admonition, he made viler associates than any he had hitherto known, and took, thus, a lower step in vice. He was just seventeen, when a letter from the principals of this school conveyed to Mr. Green such unhappy intelligence of his son that he immediately resolved, as a last resort, to send him to sea, oefore the mast — and this was done, spite of all the mother's tearful remonstrances, and the boy's threats that he would escape from the vessel on the very first opportunity.

At the. end of a .year, John came home from sea, a rough, tobacco-chewing,- cigar-smoking, dram-drinking, overgrown boy of eighteen, with all his sensual desires and animal passions more active than when he went away, while his intellectual faculties and moral - feelings were in a worse condition than at his- separation from. home. Grief at the change- oppressed • the hearts of his parents: but .their grief was unavailing. Various efforts were made to get Him into some business, but he remained only"" a short inie , in W of the places . where his father had him introduced. Finally, he was' sent to sea again. Several months elapsed. Mr. Green had returned home well satisfied with his day's business. In his pocket was the .afternoon paper, which, after the younger children -were in bed, and the older ones out of the way, he sat down to read. To the telegraphic column his eye turned lnere had been an arrival in Boston from tHe Pacific, and almost the first sentence he read was the intelligence of Jus son s death. The paper dropped from his hands, while he uttered an expression of surprise" and grief that caused the cheeks of his wife, who was in the room, to turn deadly pale, bne had not power to ask the cause of her husband's sudden exclamation, but her. heart, .that ever yearned towards her absent boy, instinctively divined the truth John is dead,' said Mr. Green, at length speaking in a tremulous voice. . & °±' Ctt *- lu fe> ■ ? ere mm ww \ S) f^ om . the ra °ther, no wild burst of anguish. The boy had been dying, to her, daily for years; and she had suffered,, for .him, worse than the pangs of death. Burying her face in her hands, she wept silently, • yet hopelessly. J ' •i'U we ~ were 0 » ly blameless of the" poor child's death,' said Mrs. Green, lifting her tearful eyes, after the lapse oi nearly ten minutes, -and speaking in. a sad, self -rebuking - tone of voice. . . " . ' -When those with whom 'we are in close relationship die, how quickly is that page in memory's book turned on • winch lies the record of unkindness or neglect! Already had this page been turned for Mr. Green, -and conscience was sweeping therefrom the dust, that well-nigh obscured the handwriting. He trembled, inwardly, as he read the condemning sentences that charged him wiiih the guilt of his own son's ruin. '. - 'If we "were only blameless of "the poor child's death!' ' • How these words of the grievjng mother smote upon his heart! He did not respond to them. How could he do so at that moment? ' Where is Edward ?' he inquired,- at length. 'I don't know,' sobbed the mother. 'He is out somewhere almost every evening. Oh! I wish you would look to him a little more closely. He is past my control.' ' I must do so,' returned Mr. Green, speaking from a strong conviction of the necessity of doing as his wife suggested — ' If I only had a little more "time •' ' He checked- himself.- It was -the -old .excuse — the rock upon which all his best hopes for his first-born had been fearfully wrecked. His lips ,closed,_his head was bowed, j and, in tho^ bitterness of unavailing sorrow, he mused on the past.