LITTLE BOB'S GREAT GRIEF.
POOR little Bob! Bob had planned to go skating after school that day: but
Bob's mother was afraid of the texture of the ice; and, when he came
home
for his skates, she told him he could not go. Bob whined, and she told him
to shut up, This caused him to whine again; when she slipped off her shoe,
with the intimation she would give him something to cry for; and she did.
Outraged in body and mind, Bob had betaken himself to his own room, and sullenly
squatted on the side of the bed. His face had settled down into hard ridges,
and his hands were clinched tight together. There was a strong rebellion
in Bob's heart. He knew the ice was strong enough to bear an elephant; and
he knew his mother knew it, and that her action was purely tyrannical. He
had looked impartially over her conduct, and there could be no other explanation.
If she had loved him, she would have done differently. They were hard thoughts
that passed through Bob's mind as he sullenly sat there, and clinched his
fingers into the palms of his hands. The shadows were gathering outside his
window, and darkness was forming the night; but Bob did not notice it. His
eyes were bent on the window; but he saw nothing through it: he saw only
the tumultuous darkness of the storm in his little heart. Every once in a
while, signs of the tempest inside appeared on the surface in long-drawn
sobs. Bob wished he was dead; wished that the golden cord could snap right
there and then. If he were dead, his mother's heart would be touched. She
would bend over him in wild
grief and bitter upbraidings; and be would lay
there white and dead, and enjoy it. Bob's idea of death was comforting, but
hardly orthodox. Bob did not want to be an angel; but Bob did crave revenge.
He hungered to get even with his mother. In the tumult of his heart, this
unsightly object was constantly being tossed to the top; and at every appearance
it looked better and brighter to him. Open rebellion was out of the question,
and Bob realized it. Bob's mother is one of those unhappy women who will
be obeyed. What would Bob do? The look in his eyes grew harder, the fingers
increased their pressure, and the lines in his face—the hard, cruel
lines—became more marked. Death would not come at the beck of a boy with
tear-stained cheeks. But Bob would have his revenge without the aid of the
dread messenger. Had his mother loved him, she could not have been so cruel.
But he would test that love now, however great or little it might be. His
own heart was numb with pain: why should not she suffer? She should! He brought
his hands together with sharp nervous force, and uttered this determination
aloud. He was in pain: so should she be. He could not defy her, but he could
grieve her; and he would. He would lacerate her feelings; he would wring
her heart; he would crush her soul. How? It doesn't seem possible that a
heart so young could conceive such a cruel purpose.
Bob determined to
eat no supper! He could hear the dishes rattle in the dining-room; but
every sound only strengthened him in his determination. He would go without
food, and gloat over the agony in his conscience-stricken mother's face as
he faded slowly away before her eyes. How happy Bob was now!—so maliciously,
so cruelly happy! Pretty soon there was a step in the hall. It was his mother
coming to call him to supper. She opened the door.
"Robert!"
"'M."
"Come to your supper."
"I don't want no supper," he said in a constrained voice.
"Don't want any supper?"
"No," he mumbled.
"If you ain't down to your supper before we get through, the table will be
cleared off, and you sha'n't have a mouthful," was the somewhat unexpected
rejoinder.
"I don't care," he replied in a stifled voice.
Then the door was shut, and Bob was alone again,—a somewhat surprised and
disappointed Bob. To his strained hearing every sound at the table was distinctly
apparent. Then came the extra rattling of clearing away the things, and,
shortly after, a silence. Poor Bob! He covered his hands over his head, and
sobbed, and sobbed himself
to sleep. When Bob awoke, the darkness was intense,
and he was chilled to the marrow. He raised his head, and listened. Not a
sound was heard. He crept out of bed, and found his way to the door. The
hall was as dark as the room. His parents had gone to bed, and had never
come near to see him fade slowly away, and were now, without doubt, sound
asleep, with no thought of little Bob. How long he had slept he could not
tell; but, while he slept, a great transformation had gone on. The aching
void in his heart had been transferred to his stomach. Shivering and quaking,
he got out of his clothes and crept into bed, with a feeling that made him
burrow his head out of sight beneath the covers. The next morning he did
not have to be called to breakfast; but at the table, under a self-inflicted
protest of a mild type, he buried his grief under a pyramid of buckwheat-cakes.
