Noble in Reason Read Free

dreariness; the front door opened, there was bustle and noise and disagreement; my father and my brothers had entered the house. At once I became the puny, the unmusical, the inefficient, the disregarded; my father or John or Henry snatched Netta away from my care.
    â€œI’m a pony, I’m a pony!” cried Netta, springing about the nursery and tossing her mane, for I had read her a story about a pony that afternoon.
    â€œOh, so you’re a horse today,” said my father genially.
    â€œI’m not a horse, I’m a pony,” objected Netta.
    â€œIt’s the same thing,” said John.
    Netta’s lower lip trembled.
    â€œI don’t want to be a horse, I’m a pony,” she wailed.
    Then John and Henry confused her with explanations, while I stood by, throbbing with anxious love. How stupid, I thought, preening myself on my perception, not to understand the utterly different meaning, in a child’s mind, of the words
pony
and
horse.
    This daily interval between the return of my father and brothers and the bedtime of Netta, always a disappointing time for me, was stretched to a protracted ordeal on holidays or half-holidays when they were at home.
    I remember for instance one wintry afternoon, the events of which, though slight enough, seemed to epitomise all my childhood’s difficulties and discontents. I suppose the date would be in the early 1900’s. It was Saturday, and the whole family was in the house. We young Jarmaynes were in the upstairsnursery together. Outside, snow fell with quiet insistence. John on the floor by the window was busy reassembling the interior of a handsome steamboat, a recent Christmas present. Henry at the table was ruling lines across a piece of paper to make musical clefs. I was reading
Tanglewood Tales,
while Netta played on the hearthrug with her dolls. It was a moment of unusual peace and harmony.
    Then Netta, tiring of her play, ran over to me and began to clamber up my knees. (“I’m climbing a wall, Chris, I’m climbing a high wall.” “Ever such a high wall,” I agreed sympathetically.) I took her by the waist and helped her up, stuffing my book behind me so that she should not tread on it as she trampled over my lap. She stretched up towards Sambo on the mantelpiece but could not reach him; I lifted her up towards him and she balanced herself on the stuffed arm of my chair. Suddenly there was a sharp scream and Netta fell backwards into my arms, followed by a metal object—she had dragged Sambo off the mantelpiece.
    Sambo was a money-box. The head and shoulders of a negro clad in a red coat, he was hollow within. One upper arm was moulded to his body, but the other arm, bent, offered a flat palm which would hold a penny. The theory was that one placed a coin on his hand and pressed a lever in his rear; Sambo then raised his hand to his mouth and the coin passed through his large smile and fell within. Sambo was not much used for his proper purpose, except reluctantly under parental direction by me—John had no coins to spare from our meagre pocket-money, Henry’s proud reserve scorned so public a management of his finances. But as a paperweight, buttress, support and so on Sambo, on account of his substantial weight, was often in demand in our activities. A red mark and an abrasion appeared on Netta’s smooth temple now as Sambo struck her a glancing blow and fell with a clang to the floor, and poor Netta, both frightened and hurt, screamedagain and tossed herself wildly in my lap. Henry and John both ran to her.
    â€œDon’t cry, Netta,” said John, jerking her from my knee into his arms. “You’re not hurt, love.”
    â€œWhy tell the child lies? She
is
hurt,” said Henry hotly, passing his long fingers over her forehead.
    Though his touch was gentle, Netta winced and struck his hand away and began a loud sobbing wail which I realized, with a sinking of my heart, would