“Yes, ma’am.  He was on the floor asleep.  I took him up, and laid him in your bed.”

“Then he’s over his troubles,” said I, attempting to find a relief for my feelings in this utterance.  But no such relief came.

Taking the wagon in my hand, I went up to the chamber where he lay, and bent over him.  The signs of grief were still upon his innocent face, and every now and then a faint sigh or sob gave evidence that even sleep had not yet hushed entirely, the storm which had swept over him.

“Neddy!” I spoke to him in a voice of tenderness, hoping that my words might reach his ear, “Neddy, dear, I’ve bought you a wagon.”

But his senses were locked.  Taking him up, I undressed him, and then, after kissing his lips, brow, and cheeks, laid him in his little bed, and placed the wagon on the pillow beside him.

Even until the late hour at which I retired on that evening, were my feelings oppressed by the incident I have described.  My “May be so,” uttered in order to avoid giving the direct answer my child wanted, had occasioned him far more pain than a positive refusal of his request could have done.

“I will be more careful in future,” said I, as I lay thinking about the occurrence, “how I create false hopes.  My yea shall be yea, and my nay nay.  Of these cometh not evil.”

In the morning when I awoke, I found Neddy in possession of his wagon.  He was running with it around the room, as happy as if a tear had never been upon his cheek.  I looked at him for many minutes without speaking.  At last, seeing that I was awake, he bounded up to the bedside, and, kissing me, said: 

“Thank you, dear mother, for buying me this wagon!  You are a good mother!”

I must own to having felt some doubts on the subject of Neddy’s compliment at the time.  Since this little experience, I have been more careful how I answer the petitions of my children; and avoid the “May be so,” “I’ll see about it,” and other such evasive answers that come so readily to the lips.  The good result I have experienced in many instances.

CHAPTER XXV.

“THE POOR CHILD DIED.”

MY baby, nine months old, had some fever, and seemed very unwell.  One neighbor said: 

“You’d better send for the doctor.”

Another suggested that it had, no doubt, eaten something that disagreed with it, and that a little antimonial wine would enable it to throw it off; another advised a few grains of calomel, and another a dose of rheubarb.  But I said: 

“No.  I’ll wait a little while, and see if it won’t get better.”

“You should give him medicine in time.  Many a person dies from not taking medicine in time;” said a lady who expressed more than usual concern for the well-being of my baby.  She had a very sick child herself.

“Many more die,” I replied, “from taking medicine too soon.  I believe that one half of the diseases in the world are produced by medicines, and that the other half are often made worse by their injudicious administration.”