"Just like his text," returned Ann. "'Be ye kind one to another.'"
CHAPTER IV.
JOSEY'S TEMPER
It was a little past two when the weary family alighted at their own door. For the last few miles, the moon had been clouded; the horses were tired; and they had to drive with care.
"Tell Cook we'll have a late breakfast," said mamma, taking her babe with a kiss. "Now, Nurse, go and get all the sleep you can."
The following morning, Josey couldn't remember coming home at all. He opened his large hazel eyes very wide, as Aunt Fanny told him what had happened.
"I'm glad we found her; isn't you?" he asked, again and again.
Baby Emma received a great many extra kisses that day, and the next, and whenever mamma thought about the mistake. But one week after another passed on, Mr. Codman preaching once in a while, until Spring came again.
When Emma was a year and a half old, she was full of mischief; and Josey, who was now five, sometimes got out of patience. He was just learning to read, and liked nothing better than to sit on Aunt Fanny's knee and hear her tell stories. Sometimes Emma, finding no one watching, would get to mamma's basket and overturn all the spools, or tangle the thread, and then Aunt Fanny had to start up and attend to her, and stop the stories very short.
Or baby would climb on a chair to her brother's shelf and pull his nice books to the floor. Once, indeed, he came in from a walk, and found mamma busy with a caller, and Emma, who had been left there while Nurse went an errand, doing a great deal of mischief. She had a new book in her hand, and just as he found her she was tearing out three or four leaves, laughing and shouting with delight. Josey ran to take his book away; but it was too late. His Christmas present was spoiled. Poor boy! he cried as if his heart would break, and was very angry with his sister, more so than his mamma had ever seen him. He struck her little fat hand, exclaiming, —
"You are naughty! naughty! and I don't love you any more."
The visitor rose to go, and Mrs. Codman did not detain her. She was so grieved at her little boy's actions, she could scarcely command her voice to say "good-bye." She rung the bell for Ann, and then, taking Josey by the hand, led him away to his own chamber.
He glanced up into his mamma's face and saw it was very white, and he began to be sorry for his bad temper.
"Oh, Josey!" she commenced at last, seating him on her knee, "do you know how you've grieved mamma?" and then the tears began to roll down her cheeks.
"Emma tore my best book," he said, softly.
"Emma is only a baby, Joseph, and didn't know any better. If you hadn't struck her, papa would have bought you another one. But, Josey, you gave way to your anger, and told your darling little sister that you didn't love her."
"I think she's too big to tear my pictures out," he said, sighing.
"She must be taught to let your things alone," answered mamma, "and you must remember to put them out of her way; but all the pictures in the world wouldn't excuse you for treating her so unkindly. Don't you remember that pretty verse you learned last Sunday? 'Be kindly affectioned one to another, in honor preferring one another.' Papa explained to you what it Meant."
"I'm sorry, mamma; but I want my pretty book."
"I'm sorry, too."
She said these words in such a sad tone that Joseph softened at once. He threw his arms around her neck, exclaiming, —
"Mamma, I'm going to be good and love God like little Samuel in the temple."
She held him close to her breast, whispering, "'He who loveth God, loveth his brother also.' This is what St. John tells us. 'If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar.'"
"Oh, mamma! I'm real sorry."
"And he says, too, 'My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth.'"
"What does that mean, mamma, to love in deed?"
"It means that it does no good merely to say 'I love you, I love God;' but we must show it by our actions."
"How could I show Emma, mamma, when she was tearing my book?"
"Think for yourself, Josey."
He looked very serious, his cheeks growing more and more red, but at last he said, softly, —
"I might have taken the book away, and put it up high; and I might think, 'She is so little, she don't know any better;' and after I said, 'naughty, naughty!' as you and papa do, then I could kiss her."
"Yes, my own darling, that would have been Christ-like, loving, kind, and forgiving; and your heart, instead of burning with anger toward your precious sister, would have been filled with the sweetest emotion, such as is implied by the words, 'Be kindly affectioned one to another.'"
"May I go and kiss Emma now, mamma?"
"Yes, darling; and I hope you will learn how pleasant love is, especially between brothers and sisters."