MARTHA FINLEY Ultimate Collection – Timeless Children Classics & Other Novels. Finley Martha
Horace colored violently, for nothing aroused his ire sooner than any interference between him and his child; but controlling himself, he replied quite calmly, "If I find her deserving of punishment, I will not spare her; but I should be sorry indeed to punish her unjustly. Will you be so good as to tell me what she has done?"
Mr. Dinsmore referred him to his wife for the commencement of the trouble, and she made out as bad a case against Elsie as possible; but even then there seemed to her father to be very little to condemn; and when Mrs. Dinsmore was obliged to acknowledge that it was Elsie's refusal to humor Enna in her desire for a particular story which Elsie thought it not best to relate on the Sabbath, he bit his lip with vexation, and told her in a haughty tone, that though he did not approve of Elsie's strict notions regarding such matters, yet he wished her to understand that his daughter was not to be made a slave to Enna's whims. If she chose to tell her a story, or to do anything else for her amusement, he had no objection, but she was never to be forced to do it against her inclination, and Enna must understand that it was done as a favor, and not at all as her right.
"You are right enough there, Horace," remarked his father, "but that does not excuse Elsie for her impertinence to me. In the first place, I must say I agree with my wife in thinking it quite a piece of impertinence for a child of her years to set up her opinion against mine; and besides, she contradicted me flatly."
He then went on to repeat what he had said, and Elsie's denial of the charge, using her exact words, but quite a different tone, and suppressing the fact that he had interrupted her before she had finished her sentence.
Elsie's tone, though slightly indignant, had still been respectful, but from her grandfather's rehearsal of the scene her father received the impression that she had been exceedingly saucy, and he left the room with the intention of giving her almost as severe a punishment as her grandfather would have prescribed.
On the way up to his room, however, his anger had a little time to cool, and it occurred to him that it would be no more than just to hear her side of the story ere he condemned her.
Elsie was seated on a couch at the far side of the room, and as he entered she turned on him a tearful, pleading look, that went straight to his heart.
His face was grave and sad, but there was very little sternness in it, as he sat down and took her in his arms.
For a moment he held her without speaking, while she lifted her eyes timidly to his face. Then he said, as he gently stroked the hair back from her forehead, "I am very sorry, very sorry indeed, to hear so bad an account of my little daughter. I am afraid I shall have to punish her, and I don't like to do it."
She answered not a word, but burst into tears, and hiding her face on his breast, sobbed aloud.
"I will not condemn you unheard, Elsie," he said after a moment's pause; "tell me how you came to be so impertinent to your grandfather."
"I did not mean to be saucy, papa, indeed I did not," she sobbed.
"Stop crying then, daughter," he said kindly, "and tell me all about it. I know there was some trouble between you and Enna, and I want you to tell me all that occurred, and every word spoken by either of you, as well as all that passed between Mrs. Dinsmore, your grandfather, and yourself. I am very glad that I can trust my little girl to speak the truth. I am quite sure she would not tell a falsehood even to save herself from punishment," he added tenderly.
"Thank you, dear papa, for saying that," said Elsie, raising her head and almost smiling through her tears. "I will try to tell it just as it happened."
She then told her story simply and truthfully, repeating, as he bade her, every word that had passed between Enna and herself, and between her and her grandparents. Her words to her grandfather sounded very different, repeated in her quiet, respectful tones; and when she added that if he would have allowed her, she was going on to explain that it was not any unwillingness to oblige Enna, but the fear of doing wrong, that led her to refuse her request, her father thought that after all she deserved very little blame.
"Do you think I was very saucy, papa?" she asked anxiously, when she had finished her story.
"So much depends upon the tone, Elsie," he said, "that I can hardly tell; if you used the same tone in speaking to your grandpa that you did in repeating your words to me just now, I don't think it was very impertinent; though the words themselves were not as respectful as they ought to have been. You must always treat my father quite as respectfully as you do me; and I think with him, too, that there is something quite impertinent in a little girl like you setting up her opinion against that of her elders. You must never try it with me, my daughter."
Elsie hung down her head in silence for a moment, then asked in a tremulous tone, "Are you going to punish me, papa?"
"Yes," he said, "but first I am going to take you down-stairs and make you beg your grandfather's pardon. I see you don't want to do it," he added, looking keenly into her face, "but you must, and I hope I shall not be obliged to enforce obedience to my commands."
"I will do whatever you bid me, papa," she sobbed, "but I did not mean to be saucy. Please, papa, tell me what to say."
"You must say, Grandpa, I did not intend to be impertinent to you, and I am very sorry for whatever may have seemed saucy in my words or tones; will you please to forgive me, and I will try always to be perfectly respectful in future. You can say all that with truth, I think?"
"Yes, papa, I am sorry, and I do intend to be respectful to grandpa always," she answered, brushing away her tears, and putting her hand in his.
He then led her into her grandfather's presence, saying: "Elsie has come to beg your pardon, sir."
"That is as it should be," replied the old gentleman, glancing triumphantly at his wife; "I told her you would not uphold her in any such impertinence."
"No," said his son, with some displeasure in his tone; "I will neither uphold her in wrongdoing, nor suffer her to be imposed upon. Speak, my daughter, and say what I bade you."
Elsie sobbed out the required words.
"Yes, I must forgive you, of course," replied her grandfather, coldly, "but I hope your father is not going to let you off without proper punishment."
"I will attend to that; I certainly intend to punish her as she deserves" said his son, laying a marked emphasis upon the concluding words of his sentence.
Elsie wholly misunderstood him, and so trembled with fear as he led her from the room, that she could scarcely walk; seeing which, he took her in his arms and carried her up-stairs, she sobbing on his shoulder.
He did not speak until he had locked the door, carried her across the room, and seated himself upon the couch again, with her upon his knee.
Then he said, in a soothing tone, as he wiped away her tears and kissed her kindly, "You need not tremble so, my daughter; I am not going to be severe with you."
She looked up in glad surprise.
"I said I would punish you as you deserve," he said, with a smile, "and I intend to keep you shut up here with me until bed-time, I shall not allow you to go down-stairs to tea, and besides, I am going to give you a long lesson to learn, which I shall require you to recite to me quite perfectly before you can go to bed."
Elsie grew frightened again at the mention of the lesson, for she feared it might be something which she could not conscientiously study on the Sabbath; but all her fear and trouble vanished as she saw her father take up a Bible that lay on the table, and turn over the leaves as though selecting a passage.
Presently he put it into her hands, and pointing to the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of John's Gospel, bade her carry the book to a low seat by the window, and sit there until she had learned them perfectly.
"O papa! what a nice lesson!" she exclaimed, looking up delightedly into his face; "but it won't be any punishment, because I love these chapters dearly, and have read them so often that I almost know every word already."