CHAPTER VI.

I have spoken of some of the good things Susy's little servants could do, and I am sorry to have to say that she sometimes let them do naughty ones.

The first thing was while she was still a baby, when she raised her hand to slap her dear, kind mamma because she was going to wash her. Little babies often do so before they have been taught better. The moment Susy's hand had given the slap, she saw that her mamma's face became grave and displeased. Then Susy was sorry, and she made haste to kiss the place she had hurt, and the tears rolled down her cheeks. But pretty soon, when something else vexed her, she lifted her little hand, and was going to strike with it. Her mamma caught it in hers, and looked at it gravely, and said: "Naughty little hand!" Then Susy began to cry again and she cried so much that her mamma had to lend her her handkerchief to wipe away her tears. Almost every day the little hand was naughty in this way, but at last Susy's mamma cured it, by always tying a red mitten on it whenever it slapped. It did not like to wear a mitten at all, because then it could not pick up its toys so well.

After Susy had learned not to strike, her little hands began to grow meddlesome, that is, to touch and take things they should not have touched. One day they tore the newspaper all to pieces. Once they cut off all her hair, as far as they could reach it. One of them got into the sugar-bowl and took three lumps of sugar. And once, when they were in the country, and there was a wash-stand in the room, Susy tried to open the drawer, and pulled the wash-stand over, broke the pitcher, spilled the water, and frightened every body very much indeed.

All these things made a deal of trouble. Susy's mamma had to keep all the time teaching her that she must not do so. It took her a great while to teach Susy that there were some things she must not touch.

And when the busy little hands began to learn what they were taught, then the little feet began to get into trouble. One day before Susy was old enough to go up and down stairs by herself, her mamma had visitors, and Susy kept talking and talking at such a rate that at last nobody else could be heard. So her mamma took her into the hall and seated her on the lowest stair, where Susy was fond of sitting, and said to her: "My little Susy must sit here a while because she does not mind mamma and stop talking." Pretty soon she heard a little voice cry out, "Mamma! aren't you afraid your little girl will fall down stairs?" and on running to see what that meant, there was Susy sitting on the top stair, smiling and looking very happy to think she had played such a trick. And not long after, the two truant feet carried Susy out into the street, among the carts and horses, and if God had not taken care of her, she would certainty have been killed. And another time Susy climbed up and was just going to put one foot out of the window, when her mamma caught her by her dress, and pulled her back. I suppose you did just such things when you were a baby, and your mamma might amuse you by telling you about it.

Susy was not so mischievous as some children are, and when she was three years old, and had learned what she might do, and what she must not, her mamma could leave her all alone in the parlor, with a few toys, and be quite sure that she would touch nothing she had been forbidden to touch, nor climb up into dangerous places, nor take any dangerous thing. The scissors might lie on the table, and the sharp knife open by her side; the good little hands would not touch them. Nor would the obedient little feet now take Susy near the fire where she could so easily have been burned. If Susy _promised_ to do a thing, she always did it, and so her mamma often let her play by herself in the parlor, when up in the nursery Robbie had not yet learned not to get away all her toys.