Nannie’s Lesson
Little Nannie Greyson was sitting on her front piazza one bright June morning, when everything around was fresh and bright, but Nannie herself was blind to all this beauty by which she was surrounded, for she had just received a new book, and was already deep in its pages.
Nannie was a very pretty little girl about nine years old. She had a fair skin, large blue eyes and golden hair, not long, but falling to her neck in short, pretty curls. Any one looking at her that June morning would immediately pronounce her very nice and lovable indeed.
The front door behind her is standing open, and presently a lady comes through the wide hall, and stands behind the little girl. She looks down at her without speaking, and the little girl finally becoming aware of her presence looks up into her face with a smile which makes her if anything, more sweet and lovable.
“O! Mamma,” she exclaims, “my book is so nice.”
And drawing a deep sigh of satisfaction she prepares to return to it. But her mamma is speaking, and she stops to listen, although very reluctantly, I am sorry to say.
“Nannie,” her mamma says, “I want you to come and amuse Herbie while I am busy in the kitchen.”
Herbie was Nannie’s two-year-old brother, and a lively little fellow to take care of.
Minnie threw down her book, and when she looked up, you would scarcely have recognized her as the same sweet little girl who looked so happy a few moments before. An angry frown had settled on the smooth forehead over the blue eyes; there was a fretful expression on her lips, and she was entirely transformed from the bright, pretty little girl whose mouth had been all smiles, to a peevish child with a pout on her lips which was not at all becoming.
“O, mamma, must I leave my book to take care of that tiresome baby? It seems to me I never sit down to read but you want me to do something for you.”
She knew she must go, though, and she got up slowly, going through the hall, up the staircase, and into the nursery at the head of the stairs, pouting and cross. She knew that her mamma was deeply grieved, and she knew also that she never would have called her from her book had it not been necessary.
HERBIE.
But still she pouted, while Herbie tried in his baby fashion to comfort her, for he saw something was wrong. She could not resist his baby coaxing very long, and her ill-humor soon vanished, and they had a merry game of romps.
Two or three hours afterward while playing with a little friend on the back piazza, she tore a bad hole in her dress. Running up-stairs to find mamma, she found her after a little search in the nursery seated by the window, in her rocking-chair with a book in her hand, a very unusual thing for Nannie’s mamma, and Herbie at her feet, busily engaged with his toys. Nannie hastened up to her, saying:
“O, mamma, just see what I have done; won’t you please mend it ‘quick.’”
Her mamma, instead of looking up with her bright smile and ready consent, threw down her book impatiently, exclaiming, as she did so:
“Oh dear, Nannie, must I leave my nice book just to mend that tear? It seems to me I never sit down to read, but you want me to do something for you.”
Nannie’s eyes filled with tears, for she recognized her own words, and knew that mamma meant to rebuke her in this way. She raised her eyes to her mamma’s face, as if asking for pardon, and as her mamma stretched out her arms, she sprang into them, sobbing her confession there.
Nannie had learned a lesson, and one that she never forgot.