FROM A WOMAN'S ARMCHAIR

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 474, 2 October 1928, Page 5

FROM A WOMAN'S ARMCHAIR

By :

MAVIS CLARE.

What a pity it is that so mans' folks who in some respects are gol-den-hearted are in others among the most thoughtless and heedless of mankind! And what a lot of trouble they cause! And how broken-hearted thes' are about it all, when it is too late! Aunt Amy comes into this category. Aunt to the charming little chap who is my housekeeper’s small son. As bright and intelligent a laddie as ever lightened the task of a Board School teacher. “Mad on reading,” as his mother puts it. Aunt Amy, ill-edu-cated, but no less fond of books, is his fairy godmother. Every Sunday he takes his school library book to her home, and she reads aloud to him, and explains the long words and the occasionally obscure passages. Her patience is inexhaustible; her love for her little nephew at least equal to the maternal devotion. And When the reading is over, there are hot scones for tea and the home-made fruit cake for which Aunt Amy is famed. Last Monday morning my housekeeper—engaged by the day—arrived half an hour late. The first time on record. And it was obvious that she had been weeping. Needless to say, I sought the cause of this unwonted distress in one so habitually cheerful that her presence is a streak of sunshine in the house. “It’s Sonny,” she said, brokenly. “You know how delicate he is, Ma’am, and he’s in for a terrible caning this morning.” To think of Sonny and any sort of a pedagogic corporal punishment was as ludicrous as it was saddening. Sonny, the "show” boy of his class, with a regular report of excellent conduct and as excellent scholastic progress. . . . What had gone wrong? “It’s his library book,” said Sonny's mother, trying valiantly to blink away her tears. “There’s been such a row over the books lately, what with them being missing, and all torn and fingermarked; and the headmaster’s fed up with it. He said the first boy who forgot his library book on Monday morning would get a thorough good caning. No matter how good his record. And Aunt Amy’s let Sonny in for it. She came over on Sunday to our place instead of him going to her as usual, and she went and walked away with the book without saying anything because she was fair gone on the story herself. Just told me, she has. I met her on my way to work, and she saw how upset I was and I had to tell her all about it. Took on dreadful, she did, and cried something shocking. But there, as I told her, tears won’t help Sonny. And him so delicate, too!” That's the trouble, of course. Tears don’t help a bit. Nor does all the goodheartedness that undoes its own good work by an act of thoughtlessness which involves a sensitive small child in unmerited disgrace and punishment.