Kenneth And His Mother

( Originally Published 1914 )

I SHOULD like to end this inadequate but honest attempt to treat a great theme by reporting just as it happened a small episode which I saw on a landing-wharf at one of our pretty inland lakes a few years ago. While waiting for the daily steamer to arrive and carry me on to the nearest railway station I was chatting with a chance acquaintance, a wholesomely athletic-looking, well-dressed, youngish-middle-aged woman, who had brought her bag of golf clubs and her youngest boy down to the pier to meet her husband coming up from the city. The child, a thoughtful-looking, large boy of six, was happily engaged in running up and down the other side of the wide pier, towing after him in the water a toy boat tied to a string. After a time his mother noticed how near to the edge he was, gave a start, and called out: " Oh, Kenneth, come here ! " Kenneth looked around surprised, and hesitated about the disposition of his precious boat. His mother prescribed his course for him in detail. "Pull your boat right up out of the water, dear, and bring it here." Kenneth obeyed, his face a study of anxiety, doubt, and uncertainty as he approached his mother. She laid her hand on his shoulder and said in a pleasant voice : " I don't want you to play in the water, dear. Just stand right here near Mother till Daddy's steamer comes in."

Kenneth's face changed tragically into horrified astonishment and grief. " But, Mamma - " he began in a voice of vehement protest.

His mother laid a well-manicured hand gently over his mouth. " No teasing, Kenneth. You know Mother never allows you to tease."

Above this extempore gag Kenneth's big eyes blazed furiously. He tore her hand away and began again, struggling hysterically to speak before she could stop him : " But, Mamma, the water there--"

At the sight and touch of the child's sudden burst of violence his mother flared up into a responsive heat. "KENNETH!" she cried threateningly in the awful tone one uses to quell an unruly dog. She did not, as a matter of fact, lay a finger upon him, but that tone was ominously resonant with the re-minder to Kenneth that she could, if she thought best, inflict any humiliation, any pain upon him. His face glared whitely up at her for an instant. He looked startingly to me like a little trapped wild animal, turning in a last frenzy of despair upon its gigantic pursuer. His mother's face set like flint. During the moment in which they confronted each other, the question at issue between them was quite nakedly the old, old question of the Stone Age, the question of personal supremacy. For a whole moment Kenneth held his own, stiffened into unnatural strength by the extremity of his emotion. But he was, after all, but six years old and knew himself to be quite without recourse or possibility of appeal in the hands of his mother. His fierce little attempt at self-defense crumpled. He hid his face in the crook of his elbow and began to cry wildly.

His mother drew a long breath of relief, as at a danger passed, and turned to me : " If you never let them get ahead of you, you never have any trouble with them," she said quite audibly, " but you must always be on your guard and never let the first hint of disobedience pass by." After this statement of her creed we tried to return to the conventionalities and to chat of the trivialities which were occupying us before the incident occurred, but the raging sobs which proceeded from the little figure of crushed rebellion were hardly an enlivening accompaniment to small-talk. " Oh, dear! Aren't children unreasonable ! " said his mother to me with a note half of exasperation, half of honest regret. " All you want to do is to take care of them and keep them from drowning and then they make it so hard for you!" After a time of uneasy silence she roused herself with an effort as to another hard task, and said gently to the child, whose paroxysm of tears had now sub-sided to spasmodic heavings and sighs : " Kenneth, dear, do you know you were rude to Mother just now? You struck my hand." She held up a white, shapely hand, pointing to a quite invisible mark upon it. " You know Mother never allows you to strike at anybody. Tell Mother you're sorry you did it."

Kenneth drew away shiveringly from his mother's caressing hand and shook his head, still hidden in his arm. His mother went on voicing her request in ingeniously varied forms : " I know my little boy is sorry he was naughty. Tell Mother you're sorry, dear. You didn't mean to hurt Mother, did you? I know you didn't mean to hurt your own Mother. Just say you didn't mean to, Kenneth."

Kenneth shrank away further from his mother's touch and shook his bowed head obstinately.

His mother looked pained and sorrowful, and began again coaxingly : "Kenneth, darling ! It's nothing hard to do; just say a few words just say you're "

I arose hastily and walked to the other side of the pier, finding the little scene intolerably painful. And as I leaned over the railing, trying to shut my ears to the steady urging murmur back of me, I noticed something that electrified me. I knew now what Kenneth had been trying to say. The beach ran up rapidly under the wide pier and the water where Kenneth had been playing with his boat was the merest film over the sand. Rejoicing greatly, I turned hastily back with this good news, but it occurred to me that to tell it was a pleasure which really be-longed to the child's mother. I scribbled on the edge of the newspaper I held, " The water is deep only on our side of the pier. Where your little boy was playing it is not more than four inches deep," and dropped it in her lap. I could hardly wait for her to read it, and with an inexpressible pleasure I savored in advance the sweetness of what was to follow, the misunderstanding cleared up, the child restored to his innocent pleasure, and reconciled with his mother. What happened was this : She read my message in silence and handed it back to me with a gentle shake of her head. " I never allow anything to interfere with the discipline of my children," she explained, veiling her meaning from the child by a careful choice of big words. " Any mother with experience knows that it is absolutely fatal to reverse a decision. The question is one of discipline now. Children must learn that when Mother says a thing "

She turned again to Kenneth, now sunk down upon the pier in a limp heap of misery. " Come, Kenneth, dear, tell Mother you're sorry," she insisted, adding: " If you don't, dear, I'm afraid that I can't let you stay down and meet Daddy. Daddy doesn't want naughty boys to meet him."

At this threat, which apparently cut deep into the quick of an immense desire, Kenneth looked up for the first time, showing a pale, tear-stained face, fairly ravaged with anger and revolt. He bore not the slightest resemblance to the child who only a few moments before had been cheerfully trotting up and down in the sunshine, watching his boat dance over the shallows. His mother saw that she had chanced upon a powerful screw and turned it hard to induce the child to do what she could not conceive of doing herself, to admit having been in the wrong. " No, dear, you can't stay here to wave your handkerchief at Daddy when he leans over the rail to look for you unless you'll say you're sorry for hurting Mother." As he hesitated, torn visibly by the violence of his desire to stay, she threw all her personality into her persuasion (it sounded oddly like teasing to me) : " Kenneth, dear, what makes you so obstinate? Say it to please Mother! Just say you're sorry ! Just nod your head!"

Kenneth looked into her pleading eyes with a hard expression and, jumping to his feet, ran madly down the pier and along the shore road. His mother turned to me sadly : "Why will children be so naughty and make such scenes? Poor little Kenneth ! He wants his way so! It's so hard for him to be good!" She added : "I know just what he'll do. He'll go home and fling himself down on h bed and sulk till dinner-time. Well, it is hard on him to miss his father. He adores him so. I'll stop on the way home and buy him some candy."