Bessie's small face was very red, and
tears were streaming down her cheeks as she
stamped her foot angrily and cried: "I don't care! This
doll is mine, and Marie took it away. I
slapped her and I'm not sorry!." She held the doll
defiantly in her arms, and stamped her foot
again, still sobbing.
Mother shook her head sadly and said,
"Oh, Bessie, Marie is only a little girl. She's
just barely three, and here you are a big girl of five.
It was very wrong of you to slap her. You
could have let her play with your doll for a little
while, just as well as not. You know you always
get your things back. Now, what should I do with you? I
do so want you to understand and be
kind. Especially to be kind to those who are younger than
you. Little children who are younger
than you are don't understand all the things you do. You
know that, and that is why you should
be kind and helpful to them until they are as big as you
are. When Marie is as old as you are now
she won't take things, because she will know better."
Bessie had grown quieter as her mother
talked. She felt ashamed, but she did not want
to admit it. This was what always happened to her. Her
temper just came up like a big black cloud
inside of her, and she forgot to be kind and good. She
got real mad and hurt people. Then she
cried and cried and stamped her foot. Much later when she
thought about these things she could
not understand it at all. It was as though it were some
other little girl inside of her doing all the
bad things . . . because she knew the real little girl
she was didn't want to do them at all. Yet they
happened all the time. She didn't know what she could do
about it. She just forgot and got mad all
over again each time.
Mother took her hand now and led her out
onto the sunny porch in the back yard.
"Look," she said, "see how you have a shadow. See how
much bigger it is than you are. See how
it sometimes goes in front if your back is to the Sun.
Then see how it jumps in back of you and
follows along if you are turned about. It sometimes gets
smaller than you are even. But it always
follows you as long as you are in the sunlight"
Bessie looked up at her mother in
surprise. She wondered what this had to do with
her being a bad girl. She knew it would have something to
do with it. Mother didn't scold very
often. Instead she had ways of telling things so that it
made you want to try to be better. That was
what scolding was supposed to do, but scolding never did.
Mother sat down on the porch steps, and
pulling Bessie gently over beside her, went
on talking. "I'm going to tell you a story about a
shadow. I want you to listen very carefully, and
then I 'm going to let you sit here alone for a a while
and talk about it." That, too, was the way
Mother did things. After the story, you had to think
about it, and then you knew what you could
do about it to make the story fit in your own life. Some
stories can be made to help you like that.
Mother's soft voice continued: "Once
there was a little girl. She was pretty and had a
nice home. She had everything a little girl needed to be
a fine little girl. Sometimes little girls don't
have everything they need. It's harder for these little
girls, but there was no excuse for the little
girl I'm telling you about. She had what she needed
except being nice inside herself. She could be
very nice when she wanted to be, but other times she had
a very bad temper. When she got mad,
she did just awful things. She was cruel sometimes. Very
often she made others unhappy. Then
after she had these bad temper fits she felt unhappy too.
Still, she just kept right on having temper
fits just the same. But one day a very strange thing
happened to her. She was just terribly mad.
She had kicked her best friend. Then she stamped her foot
and screamed and cried so much that it
hurt everyone's ears to hear her. No one wanted to be
near her. They just walked away and left
her alone, and that's when this strange thing happened.
Can you guess what it was?"
Bessie silently shook her head and
Mother went on with the story. "Well, she was left
all alone in the garden. The Sun was shining down, and
her shadow danced up and down just as
she did. All of a sudden though, it just stepped away
from her. The shadow spoke as it did this
saying, 'Little girl, I 'm tired of following you around.
I'm not going to stay with you any longer.
You will be the only little girl in all this land without
a shadow. And I won't come back until you
stop making everyone so miserable. Why, just look at the
way you've been shaking me up and
down every time you get into one of your tantrums. No
shadow likes that. A shadow wants to
follow a nice person around. Goodbye until you become
nice!' And the shadow walked away.
"Soon she began to feel very lonesome.
She got so she didn't like to walk in the
sunshine any more, for then everyone noticed that she had
no shadow and wouldn't come near
her. They just stood a distance away and pointed at her,
some of them saying, 'Look, there's a
strange little girl. She has no shadow! She must be very
bad if her own shadow won't follow her
any more!'
"This made the little girl very
unhappy, and she began to feel sorry for the way she
had treated others. Soon she began trying to be more
kindly and considerate in her feelings
toward others, and not to lose her temper. She tried so
hard that after a while she didn't have
tantrums any more. Losing one's temper is just a bad
habit, after all, and people can learn to form
the good habit of not losing their tempers — if they try.
The little girl was rather surprised to
learn that this was really true, although her mother had
told her that it was. Now her shadow
came back, and all her friends did, too. She was her real
self now, and a lovely playmate."
Mother stood up. "Please think about
this story, Bessie. I think you will find that it
will help you with your temper."
Bessie heard the door behind her close
quietly as Mother went into the house to
prepare supper. It was only a fairy story, of course — she
knew that. Nobody ever heard of such a
thing as a shadow not staying with anyone. That was
silly. But she knew what the story meant all
right. She knew how the little girl must have felt. If
such things could happen it would be just
awful. It would be almost like not having on a dress, if
you didn't have your own shadow with
you. She knew it was going to help her remember not to
get mad any more. Every time she
looked at her shadow it would be a reminder.
She slipped off the porch, and her
shadow went gaily along with her. She crossed the
yard to Marie's house. She felt very bad when she saw the
sharp red flush on Marie 's small face
where she had slapped her a short while before. She sat
down and handed the doll to her, saying,
"There, Marie, you can play with it. I'm sorry."
Marie smiled up happily with
forgiveness in her eyes. Wanting to make up for her
meanness Bessie said, "I'll tell you a story, Marie." So
she explained about shadows to Marie, and
then told her the story that Mother had just told her.
They were sitting together happily when
Bessie heard Mother calling her in to supper.
She skipped home with her shadow
skipping along in back of her. Throwing herself
into Mother's arms, she said, "Mummy, my shadow followed
me. It's fun watching it, and I'll try
to remember not to shake it up and down by being mad any
more."
Mother gave her a kiss and replied:
"That's just what I hope you'll do, dear. I want
you just as lovely inside as you are outside."
Bessie laughed happily, for everything
was all right now. She wanted to be nice
inside, too, the way Mother said. It felt so much better
being that way.
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