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“You little torment!” exclaimed the mother, springing up, and jerking the string and box angrily from Mary’s hand. “It is too bad! you know well enough that you had no business to touch this. Just see what a condition the floor is in! Oh dear! Shall I never teach the child any thing?”

Mrs. Elder took the dredging-box out into the kitchen, and gave the cook a sound scolding for permitting the child to have it. When she got back, Mary had her work-basket on the floor, rummaging through it for buttons and spools of cotton.

“Now just see that!” she exclaimed again. “There now!” And little Mary’s ears buzzed for half an hour afterwards from the sound box she received.

After the child was thrust from the room, Mrs. Elder said, fretfully, “I’m out of all heart! I never saw such children. They seem ever bent on doing something wrong. Hark! what’s that?”

There was the crash of something falling over head, followed by a loud scream.

Uncle William and Mrs. Elder both started from the room and ran up-stairs. Here they found Henry, a boy two years older than Mary, who was between three and four, lying on the carpet with a bureau drawer upon him, which he had, while turning topsy-turvy after something or other, accidentally pulled out upon him. He was more frightened than hurt, by a great deal.

“Now just look at that!” ejaculated the outraged mother when the cause of alarm became apparent. “Just look at that, will you? Isn’t it beyond all endurance! Haven’t I told you a hundred times not to go near my drawers, ha? No matter if you’d been half killed! There, march out of the room as quick as you can go.” And she seized Henry by the arm with a strong grip, and fairly threw him, in her anger, from the chamber.

While she was yet storming, fretting, and fuming over the drawer, Uncle William retired from the apartment and, went down-stairs again. On entering the room he had left but a few minutes before, he found Mary at her mother’s work-basket again, notwithstanding the box she had received only a short time before for the same fault.

“Mary,” said Uncle William to the child, in a calm, earnest, yet kind voice.

The child took its hands from the basket and came up to her uncle.

“Mary, didn’t your mother tell you not to go to her basket?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Mary, looking steadily into her uncle’s face.

“Then why did you go?”

“I don’t know.”

“It was very wrong.” Uncle William spoke seriously, and the child’s face assumed a serious expression.

“Will you do it any more?”

“No, sir.” Mary shrink close to her uncle, and her reply was in a whisper.

“Be sure and not forget, Mary. Mother sews with her spools of cotton, and uses her scissors to make little Mary frocks and aprons, and if Mary takes any thing out of her work-basket, she can’t do her sewing good. Will you remember?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now don’t forget.”

“No, sir.”

“And just see, Mary, how you have soiled the carpet with the dredging-box! Didn’t you know the flour would come out and be scattered all over the floor?”

“No, sir.”

“But now you know it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You won’t get the dredging-box any more?”

“No, sir.”

While this conversation was going on, Mrs. Elder came down, still feeling much excited. After Uncle William had said what he considered enough to Mary, he took up his book and commenced reading. The child stood leaning against him for five or ten minutes, and then ran out of the room.

“How long do you suppose she will remember what you have said?” remarked Mrs. Elder, with a lightness of tone that showed her contempt for all such measures of reform.

“Much longer than she will remember your box on the ear,” was the blunt reply.

“I doubt it. Words make no impression on children.”

“Harsh words make very little impression, I admit. For these close up, instead of entering the avenues to the mind. Kind words, and reasons for things, go a great way even with children. How long did Mary remember and profit by your sound rating and box on the ear (still red with the blow) into the bargain? Not over ten minutes; for when I came down-stairs, she had both hands into your basket again.”