In her desire to make her child take proper care of his clothes, the mother had struck terror to the little fellow's heart.
Such childish terror is genuine, and yet hard to express.

The self-control of childhood is far greater than the average father or mother appreciates.

Some children seem to have an actual dread of communicating their fears and fancies to other people.
A friend tells me that when she was but six years old she heard her father say impatiently, as his wife handed him a bill: "I can't pay this! At the rate at which bills come in nowadays, I soon will not have a cent left in the world.

It is enough to bankrupt a man!" At bedtime that night the little daughter asked her mother, with the indifferent air children so soon learn to assume: "Mamma, what becomes of people when all their money is gone, and they can't pay their bills ?" "Sometimes, dear," answered the unsuspicious mother, "their houses and belongings are sold to pay their bills." "And when people have no house, and no money, and nothing left, where do they go?
Do they starve to death ?" "They generally go to the poorhouse, my daughter." "Oh, mamma!" quavered the little voice, "don't you think that is dreadful ?" "Very dreadful, darling! Now go to sleep." To sleep! How could she, with the grim doors of the home for the county paupers yawning blackly to receive her?
All through the night was the horror upon her, and to this day she remembers the sickening thrill that swept over her while playing with a little friend, when the thought occurred: "If this girl's mother knew that we were going to the poorhouse, she would not let her play with me." Little by little the impression wore off, aided in the dissipation by the sight of numerous rolls of bills which papa occasionally drew from his pocket.

But not once in all that time did the child relax the strict guard set upon her lips, and sob out her fear to her mother.
She does not now know why she did not do it, except that she could not.
An otherwise judicious father talks over all his business difficulties with his seven-year-old son.