"Yes, Robert; but I declare to you I am frightened whenever I think of the risk I ran by letting her fall in, head first, as I did."
Poor Ruth began lifting her head by little and little, and to feel about, and pinch herself, to see if she was really awake, or only dreaming.
"And then, too, just think of this terrible fever, and the strange, wild poetry she has been talking, day after day, about Fairy-land."
"Poetry! Fudge, Robert, fudge!"
Ruth looked up, full of amazement and joy, and whispered, "Fudge, father, fudge!" and the very next words that fell from her trembling lips as she sat looking at her mother, and pointing at a little bunch of forget-me-nots in full flower, that her mother had kept for her in a glass by the window, were these: "Oh, mother! dearest mother! what a terrible dream I have had!"
"Hush, my love, hush! and go to sleep, and we will talk this matter over when you are able to bear it."
"Goody gracious, mamma!"
"There she goes again!" cried the father; "now we shall have another fit!"
"Hush, hush, my love! you must go to sleep, now, and not talk any more."
"Well, kiss me, mamma, and let me have your hand to go to sleep with, and I'll try."
Her mother kissed the dear little thing, and took her hand in hers, and laid her cheek upon the pillow, and, in less than five minutes, she was sound asleep, and breathing as she hadn't breathed before, since she had been fished out of the water, nearly three weeks back, on her way to Fairy-land.
Troublesome comforts are they at best, these Little Plagues; and yet, how on earth should we get along without them? Mysterious and wonderful in their perturbations and irregularities, they are continually amazing the wisest by their questionings, and startling whole neighborhoods with their strange outbreaks of inner life, as you may see by what follows. For a long while—many years, indeed—I have been in the habit of minuting down the stories that have come in my way about the little folks—the seedling cherubim—out of which, as the stars are smelted, the angels of God, who see His face forever, are to be recast and refashioned for the skies. Grains of gold are they, often gathered from street sweepings and rubbish; diamond-sparks which the great multitude, in their headlong hurry, overlook, but infinitely precious to the Philanthropist and the Philosopher. For example:—
No. 1. And this I had from the late John Pierpont, who related it of a grandchild, yet living, I hope.
"Aunt May-ee," said the little thing to her aunt, who was combing her hair, "I don't like Dod."
"Don't like God, Sissy! when He's so good to you, and gives you Aunt Mary and grandpa, and grandma, and ever so many friends to take care of you,—why, Sissy?"
"Well, but"—growing thoughtful and trying to escape—"well, but Sissy don't like black Dod."
"There isn't any black God, Sissy."
"Then who made Chloe?"
Did not that child reason?
No. 2. "'Top, mother!" said a little boy to his mother, who was reading to him about Abraham and Isaac, and had just come to the uplifted knife; "'top, mother! I don't want to hea any more.I despise him." Did not that childfeel? and is it conceivable that he meant what he said? Feeling his gorge rise, with abhorrence, it may be, and not understanding the awful significance of the threatened sacrifice, a type of what afterwards happened on Mount Moriah, where the Temple stands, he took that word which, in his little childish experience, best corresponded with his thought of horror and amazement that a father should put his child to death.
No. 3. And this reminds me of a little girl, who had never learned to read, but used to take her Bible and sit down by herself in the corner, as all children do at times, and make believe read. One day, when the mother was very busy, the child wanted to hear about Noah and the Ark. The mother had read over certain passages aloud so often, that the child had got them by heart. She opened at the place, and gave her little one the book in her lap. After awhile, the child began to murmur to herself—the mother listened—and the little thing read as follows, with the greatest possible seriousness and unction: "And the Lord said unto Noah, Come out, thou and thy wife, and thy sons' wives and thy daughters, and—balancez!"
The dear little puss had just begun to go to the dancing-school. What wonder that she didn't always know her head from her heels?
No. 4. Another little girl, who had been favored with glimpses of the upper sky, having been told by her mother that she wasalwayssurrounded by guardian angels, grew very thoughtful, and, after drawing a long breath, looked up and said, "Mamma, do you meanreallythatall the whole timethey are with me?" On receiving a solemn assurance in the affirmative, she exclaimed with an impatient fling, "Well, really, Ishouldlike to be alone a little while,sometimes."
What a lesson for the mother! If children are allowed to dabble with mysteries like these, without explanation, they cannot be otherwise than shocking sometimes, like a Leyden jar; and if they are, whose fault is it? Either more or less ought to have been told that dear little, honest baby.
No. 5. But children have wonderful foresight, and often reach conclusions by a sort of intuitive logic, as women do—flashing the truth upon us without preparation, and forecasting the future, as if suddenly gifted with second sight. A little boy, having been told by his parents that he couldn't go to church because he was too small, answered with a toss of the head, "Well, you'd better take me now, for when I get bigger, I may not want to go!" To which I say, Bravo! my little man! Such a reply ought to throw the doors of any church wide open to you, as to a glorified spirit—in embryo.
No. 6. A little girl knelt down by her mother's knee to say her prayers, before going to bed. After finishing the Lord's Prayer, she went on to offer up her little petitions for every separate member of the family, and at last came to the youngest, who, having been rather naughty that day, was out of favor: "And please God make Lucy a good little girl, and make——" here she was suddenly interrupted by Lucy, who burst out with—"Here you! stop that! I'll do my own praying myself, I thank you!"
Who would not sympathize with such a child, under such circumstances, even though both were at an infant prayer-meeting? And who is there who would not shrink from being prayed for to his face anywhere, after such a fashion?
No. 7. Their notions of language, too, are sometimes of the drollest, as where the poor boy used that unfortunate worddespise, when he meant only to express horror and astonishment. "How did you fall—backward?" said a mother to a child who was just coming to herself and gasping for breath, after a heavy fall. "Backward, mamma! no indeed—I fellaccidentally."
No. 8. A dear little boy, anything but pious, though happy and cheerful, and about as good as most boys of his age, had been listening patiently for a long while to his mother's account of heaven—likening it to a great everlasting Sabbath-school. At last he looked up, with a troubled countenance, and said in a whisper, "But mamma, don't you think God would let me have a little devil come up and play with me sometimes, when I have been very good?"
No. 9. Another little fellow, on his way home from his church with his mother, seemed astonished at the crowds he saw. After walking awhile without speaking, he came out with, "Why mamma, I should think God would be tired making so many people." Here was an embryo theologian for you! And yet he had probably never heard of the Scripture, where it is said that Godrepentedof His making man. Nor was he quite prepared to understand why such crowds were ever made, nor what they were good for, seeing how they behaved, and how they were employed, and how they dressed, and how they chattered. If Babels were scattered of yore, why not now—if they try to scale the heavens by a forbidden path, or to carry their bulwarks by assault, as most of the nations do?
No. 10. A little girl who had learned her letters and all her lessons by the help of a pictured primer, but had never learned to put them together, opened her book one day at the picture of aquail, with its name underneath, in large letters. After studying a long while, she seemed to catch the idea, and called it apigeon—a word she could not pronounce, though she knew the bird well enough, and out she came with "Q. U. A. I. L.—fidget"—with such an air of triumph and self-complacency, it was never forgotten.
No. 11. Children's prayers—if they are indeed prayers—must be acceptable on earth as well as in heaven; and he must indeed be heartless, or worse, who would think slightingly of them, although, sooth to say, they are sometimes hard to bear. For example: a little girl, on having her hair smartly pulled by her little brother, while saying her prayers, went on for awhile, without turning her head, in the same low monotone, "and please God, excuse me for a minute, while I kick Neddy." Tell me that child was without understanding what is meant by prayer! or that she meant to abuse the privilege. No such thing—though, to be sure, she may have misunderstood some of its functions. Had she not been a believer, she would have kicked Neddy at once, without asking leave—would she not?
No. 12. But children must not be allowed to counterfeit or pretend. Encourage them to be honest, even in prayer—honest even at church. A fine, hearty little fellow, who had been treated with his first circus on Saturday, and to his first church-service the next Sabbath-morning, sat quietly enough, as everybody acknowledged, for the first half hour: and then he began to grow uneasy, and fidget in his seat, until he was admonished by his mother more than once. Worn to death at last, he groaned out loud enough to be heard in the neighboring pews, "O dear! I'd rather go to two circuses than one meeting!" Of course he told the truth; and of course he ought to have been patted on the back, and encouraged for his downright honesty.
No. 13. Quart pots don't hold a gallon—though pint bottles are sometimes said to hold a quart in certain establishments; and we must be wary of packing and crowding these earthen vessels, before they are hooped and strengthened. A small boy, not otherwise remarkable, though mischievous, adroit and playful, had been talked to, till he was out of all patience with a clergyman, about the omnipresence of God. It was pretty clear, from what followed, that he had begun to be somewhat sceptical, and he determined to lay a trap for his teacher. One day, when they were riding together, the following conversation was had:—
"Didn't you tell me, sir," said our young master, "that God is everywhere?"
"Yes, my child."
"Is he in this carriage?"
"Yes."
"Is he in my hat?"
"Yes—yes."
"Is he in my pocket?"
"Yes, child"—rather impatiently.
"Hurrah! now I've got you! I ain't got no pocket!" was the clincher.
What a lesson for that clergyman! If, as Goethe says, Hamlet was an oak planted in a china vase, intended for a rose-tree, so that when the plant grew, the pot was shattered, what was likely to happen to that child, if the omnipresence of God had been suffered to take root in his young, unprepared heart?
No. 14. Another child, afflicted with similar misgivings, took a different course to satisfy his inward longings. After propounding every conceivable question at the breakfast-table one day, he clenched the whole with, "Is God in this sugar-bowl?" "Certainly," said his mother. Whereupon, with a whoop, he clapped his hand on the bowl, and shouted, "Ah, ha! now I've got you, old fellow!"
So much for misunderstanding the most obvious truth, namely, that, although men are but children of a larger growth, children are not often philosophers, theologians, or giants—Mozart to the contrary notwithstanding; and that, in training them for another world, they are to be uplifted, not overborne, with mystery.
No. 15. Another little chap of three years only, met his father on his return from a long journey, exclaiming, "O papa, I've got a tory ofinteretto tell you. Dis mornin' mamma was writin' in the parlor, an' a gate, big, yeller fly comed in at the open window, an' it kep sayin'sizzum, sizzum, sizzum,three times, an' itbeedmy hand with its foot, and its foot was hot!"
Had not this child pretty decided notions of what is meant by the song of a "bumble bee," and the sting? Let him alone for that.
No. 16. The same boy, having thrown something valuable into the fire, was taken to task by his father, who, after remonstrating with him awhile on the enormity of his transgression, wound up with, "Why, my dear child, if you go on in this way, just think what a dreadful boy you will be, when you grow up!" At this, the little fellow's face brightened all over, and he exclaimed, "Why papa! I shall be yest like ee yobber kitten, sant I?"—alluding to the autobiography of a very disreputable fast kitten, who, or ratherwhich, had taken to the highway at an early age, and is therefore a special favorite with children of all ages—like most of Mayne Reid's heroes, or Jonathan Wild, or Jack Sheppard.
No. 17. And this reminds me of a similar case, where well-meant instruction was painfully misunderstood by a promising little fellow, who was very fond of Bible-stories with illustrations. His mother was showing him a picture of Daniel in the lion's den, with the old lions ramping and tearing their prey to tatters, and a young lion—a cub—looking on. Just when she had begun to congratulate herself on the success of her teaching, the child cried out, "O mamma! look! look! the little one won't get any!"
N. B.—Beware of cramming and overloading. Beware also of expecting too much in this world. But, above, all, beware of misunderstanding yourself in your children!
No. 18. Yet more. A little girl having been brought up on the song "I want to be an angel!" had evidently been pondering the manners, habits, occupations and usages of that fraternity, until at length she came out decidedly with, "No mamma—I don't want to be an angel!"
"Not want to be an angel! Why, Susie!" exclaimed the mother, greatly shocked at the child's hopeless condition; "and why not, pray?"
"'Cause, mamma, I don't want to lose all my pretty close, an' wear fedders, like a hen!"
There's truthfulness for you—worth its weight in gold—a string of "Orient pearls at random strung."
No. 19. Another little fairy, having been carefully trained to a proper estimate of the becoming in attire, was taken into a room to see her dead grandmother in her coffin. She looked very grave at first, and then sorrowful, and after a minute or two said, in a low, sweet, trembling voice, with her little hand stealing slowly into her mother's hand, "Has grandmamma gone to heaven in that ugly cap, mamma?"
No. 20. Little mischiefs, at the best, I have said—are they not? Just read the following, and say no, if you dare! A youngster in Peoria, Illinois, while ransacking his sister's portfolio, came across a package of love-letters carefully tied up with a blue ribbon, and stowed snugly away; being her correspondence with a charming fellow, not, perhaps, to the liking of papa and mamma. These he took to the corner of a crowded thoroughfare, and, as he had seen the postman do, distributed them to the passers-by. His poor sister heard of the achievement after they were in general circulation; and then!—ask our friend Carlyle, after shooting Niagara; or Wendell Phillips—after Grant. See No. 53.
No. 21. I have just met with this: "A little lady of thirty months only, insists on calling a cane with a crooked handle, 'An umbrella without any clothes on.'" There's a philologist for you! And one, too, capable of giving a reason for what she says.
No. 22. A little boy in Scotland was asked by his Sabbath-school teacher what was meant byregeneration. "Being born again," he replied. "And would you not like to be born again, my little man?" said the teacher. "No!" answered the boy, with decided emphasis, greatly to the surprise of the good dominie. "And why not?" continued the latter. "For fear I might be born a lassie," said the boy. Was there ever a better reason, with the poor boy's understanding of the great mystery? So much for dabbling with metaphysics before the unprepared.
No. 23. And sometimes they have to do with politics and other worldly matters,—the social evil, perhaps, or woman's-rights, or universal suffrage. And why not? being what they are, miniature men and women, with the rights of both.
"Be you a Democrat or a Republican?" said one of these President-makers in embryo, to another little fellow in a frilled apron. "No, I'm not either," was the indignant reply; "I belong to the Congregational Church." Of course he did; having been baptized into that denomination, when just old enough to be deeply impressed with the ceremony.
No. 24. A little girl of six years at the most, after her nurse had enlarged upon the character and attributes of the Old Evil One, till her blood ran cold, broke out with, "Auntie, if the devil is so wicked, why don't God kill him?" A question, by the way, which has "puzzled philosophers of all sects and ages," like the "cosmogony of the world," according to Oliver Goldsmith, and his delightful friend, Ephraim Jenkinson.
No. 25. Little Maud, five years old, was sitting on the floor, and trying to stitch like her mother. Suddenly looking up, after a long silence, she said, like one familiar with the gossip of the tea-table and the quilting-frame, "Mamma, I was thinking God must be getting quite along in years!" Of course, the poor little thing had never been so far indoctrinated, as to understand that, with God, a thousand years are as one day, or a watch in the night, and one day as a thousand years, with no past, and no future, but one everlasting present.
No. 26. Another little woman, being asked by her Sunday-school teacher, "What did the Israelites do after passing through the Red Sea?" answered, "I don't know, ma'am, but I guess they dried themselves." And why not, pray? What would be more likely?
No. 27. And here we have one exceedingly jealous for the Lord. A little boy, who, whenever he went out to play, was plagued and pestered by a little girl somewhat older—who squinted awfully, and was, it must be acknowledged, absolutely frightful—on being asked why he was always souglyto Susie Bates, since God made Susie Bates as well as him, exclaimed, "O, Nurse Thompson, ain't you ashamed to talk in that way about the good Lord?"
Will you tell me that child did not reason? or that,asa child, he was irreverent, because he would not charge God foolishly, nor hold the Great Workman answerable for such workmanship?
No. 28. And this brings to mind the following incident: Some years ago my own little boy went, with his brother Robert, on a trip to the Islands. After awhile, he was caught making the most horrible faces at another little boy, somewhat older, who sat in the stern of the boat a long way off, but fronting them. Brother Robert interfered, and asked what possessed my little fellow—a good-natured, pleasant boy, as ever lived. "Why, don't you see? He's making faces at me all the time," said Pepper-pot. Upon further inquiry, it turned out that the strange boy was epileptic, or troubled with St. Vitus' dance, and all the faces he had been making were involuntary. Of course, it never entered the head of our little one that the faces he saw were God's work, or he would have lowered his voice to a whisper, as he always did in the Sabbath-school, when he asked about God.
No. 29. That children are curious, and inquisitive, and rather troublesome at times, we all know. But, if it were otherwise, how would they ever learn their a babsin this world? In a Western village, a charming little widow had been made love to by a physician. "The wedding-day appointed was—the wedding-clothes provided." But among her children was a poor crippled boy, who had been allowed full swing ever since the death of his father. "Georgie," said the mother, calling him to her, "Georgie, I am going to do something pretty soon that I should like to have a little talk with you about." "Well, ma, what is it?" "I am going to marry Dr. Jones in a few days, and I hope——" "Bully for you, ma!Does Dr. Jones know it?" Who that wears a cap would not sympathize with that poor widow?
No. 30. But children are soothsayers and prophets; and they have open visions, it may be, if we would but listen to their low breathing. "Father," said a little Swedish girl, one still, starry night, after a long silence, "father, I have been thinking if the wrong side of heaven is so beautiful, what must the right side be?" Was not this a revelation? and such a revelation, too, that even her father must have been astonished? Was it not as if her whole character had been revealed to him, on her way upward, as by a flash from the empyrean?
No. 31. But we must be patient with all anxious inquirers. In a small Western village, there was a store kept by a nice young woman, who was a teacher in the Sabbath-school, and deeply interested in all that concerned that institution.
"Do you go to the Sabbath-school?" said she, one day, to a dirty little chap, who came blundering through the establishment, as if he had taken it for the play-ground.
"Sabbath-school! what's that?" said he.
"Don't you know? Why, a Sabbath-school is where we read in the Bible, and learn all about God, and our blessed Saviour, and the——"
"O," said he, "I've read about God, andt'other feller that killed his brother, in the School Reader. Tain't no use my goin' to school Sunday; I know all about 'em." Whereupon the young lady teacher "dried up"—wilted, perhaps—and set her trap for another young reprobate.
No. 32. "A little three-year-old," says a neighbor, "was in the habit of helping himself to crackers without leave, by lifting the lid of a tin box, and plunging his little arm in up to the elbow. One day, after listening to stories about rats, he went after a cracker, and hearing a noise that he fancied was made by rats, he scampered back to the sitting-room, with big eyes and a flushed face, and assured his mother that he wasn't afraid. 'O, muzzer!' said he, 'I ain't afaid o'wats, but I'se so tired I couldn't lift the cover!'" How many grown people have you heard guilty of a similar subterfuge. Not afraid, to be sure—not they—but only somewhat hurried, or having just remembered an engagement, as they were about lifting the lid of something dangerous.
No. 33. And here is a case of downright special pleading, worthy of Lord Coke himself, or Saunders, or Theophilus Parsons, or Chitty, or Judge Gould. "Oh, Tommy, that was abominable in you, to eat your little sister's share of the cake!" "Didn't you tell me, ma, that I was always totake her part?" said Tommy.
No. 34. "George," said a minister to one of the little boys, who looked as if butter wouldn't melt in his mouth, "where is your sister Minnie?" "Gone to heaven, sir." "What!—is she dead?" "O, no, sir; she went to buy a box of matches." "Why, you said she had gone to heaven." "Yes, sir—but you said last Sunday that matches were made in heaven, and so I thought she went there."
N. B.—I don't believe a word of this; but if true, all I have to say is, that, like the princes in the tower, it is well that such children are not often allowed to grow up. "Whom the gods love die young," said the ancients; but I say, Whom the gods love die of old age—unless they have been snuffed out for their untimely brilliancy.
No. 35. "Father, I don't like the bishop." "Why, dear?" "Because he sprinkled water all over my new frock, and said 'Fanny, I despise thee!'"
No. 36. A little girl of seven years, who had been brought up to go tomeeting, and knew nothing about a church, high or low, was taken by a friend to the Episcopal church on communion day. Returning home, she was asked by her father how she liked the service. "Well, papa," she answered, "I must say that I don't like to go to a place where the ministerhas to change his shirt three times in meeting." Ritualistic, High-Church ceremonies, the young lady was not quite prepared for.
No. 37. A certain little Sissy, being worried by a big brother till she was out of all patience, plumped down upon her knees, where she stood, and cried out, "O Lord! bless my brother Tom. He lies—he steals—he swears; all boys do—we girls don't. Amen!" Was the poor thing a little pharisee in her indignation, without knowing it? or was she only—like most of us who are loudest in our outcries for the salvation of others—a little overburdened with self-righteousness?
No. 38.Small boy on tip-toe to his playfellows.—"Now you hush there, all of you."
"Why, what's the matter, Bobby?" "Well—we've got a new baby. It's very weak and tired, and walked all the way from heaven last night; and you mustn't be kicking up a row here now."
No. 39.Little Tommy.—"I say, ma, is it true that we are made out of the dust?"
Ma.—"Yes, Tommy; so we are told."
Tommy.—"I'll be hanged if I can believe it; 'cause you see, if we was, when we sweat, wouldn't we be muddy?"
That boy was a Transcendentalist, and no mistake.
No. 40.Natural affection betraying itself.—A man of influence and character was dying slowly of consumption. Being satisfied that his days were numbered—his very breathings counted—he used to call his little son to the bed-side, the pet of the household, and say to him, whenever he wanted any little thing done, that by and by, after he was dead and buried, the horse and carriage, and money-box, would all be little Sammy's. At last the father died, and the little fellow, then about five years of age,—with his grandfather and mother, were about leaving the graveyard,—snatched the reins from his grandfather, and sung out, "Get up, old hoss! You's mine now, carriage, money-box and all!" Had he been a few years older, he would have kept the secret to himself, and peradventure looked sorrowful over the untimely inheritance.
No. 41. Little Frank had been told to believe that we are all made of dust. One day, as he stood watching at the window, while a strong wind was whirling the dust into eddies, and hurrying it away into holes and corners, and there piling it up with the dried leaves, his mother asked him what he was thinking of. "O," said he, with uncommon seriousness for so young a philosopher, "I thought the dust looked as though there was going to be another little boy."
No. 42. A very little chap, who would no more have thought of going to bed without saying his prayers, than of going to bed without his supper, while the goodies were in sight, had just bidden everybody good-night, with a warm, loving kiss. That very day his mother had been teaching him the lines, "You'd scarce expect one of my age," and so he began his little prayer in the following fashion: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep; if I should chance to fall below Demosthenes or Cicero, don't view me with a cricket's eye, but——"
"Hush, hush!" said his mother; "O hush, my boy! that's no part of the prayer."
"Yes it is too, mamma—don't view me with a cricket's eye," etc., etc.
Didn't that mother laugh a little to herself, think you? I'll bet she did.
No. 43. A teacher in one of our Sabbath-schools, who had quite a reputation for accommodating his lesson to the understanding of children, said to a little bit of a thing, one day, with whom she had been laboring for a long while, "If a naughty girl should strike you, my dear, you would forgive her, wouldn't you?" "Yeth, marm—if I couldn't catch her," was the reply—only to be matched by the dying Highlander, who called out to a neighboring chief, whom he had just been reconciled to, "But mark ye, lairdee—mind now—if I get abroad agen, all this goes for naethin'."
No. 44. Another little chap, just verging upon three, but of a thoughtful, prying disposition far beyond his years, sat watching his mother while she was making biscuit for tea—though her husband was an Orthodox clergyman of Pittsfield, Mass.—and asked her if it was not wicked to work on Sunday. "Certainly," said she. "O my!" said he, clapping his little hands, "won't 'oo catch it, when 'oo gets to heaven!"
No. 45. And then, too, how knowing the little wretches are sometimes. A young gentleman of about five summers was travelling in a crowded stage-coach, and had been taken into the lap of a passenger. On the way, some stories were told about pickpockets and their adroitness, and the conversation at last became general. "Ah, my fine fellow," said the gentleman who had the little one upon his knee, "how easy I could pickyourpocket"—as it lay gaping near his hand. "No you couldn't, neither," said the boy, "'cause I've been looking out for you all the way."
No. 46. And how wise beyond their years, and how full of resource in danger, sometimes. As three children, Peter Mitchell, Louis Leach, and Ann I. Lindsay, aged eight, five and four—I give their names, that they be remembered, and the facts verified—were playing about the premises of Mr. Horace Balcomb, in the town of Sudbury, Mass., Leach tumbled into a hogs-head of rain-water set in the earth, five feet deep. As soon as he fell in, the boy Mitchell ran away to find his mother, who lived a long way off; but the little girl—only four, you will remember—managed to get hold of the drowning boy by the shoulders, and keep his head above the water, till the neighbors came to her help, and pulled him out in safety.
No. 47. In a Boston Sunday-school—where, of course, impertinent, puzzling questions are never allowed—the teacher asked, "Where was Jesustaken, when he was arrested in the garden?" A bright little thing answered immediately, "To the station-house." Whereupon the teacher observed that there were no station-houses at that time; and the poor child instantly corrected herself by saying, "I meant the State's Prison." Teachers, beware!
No. 48. A naughty little boy, being told by his mother that God would not forgive him, if he did something, answered, "Yes He would too—God likes to forgive little boys—that's what He's for." Of course that boy was a Universalist from the shell, and had about as clear a notion of what God wasfor, as many a profound theologian, or metaphysician.
No. 49. But we have Grace Darlings, Florence Nightingales, and many other self-denying, self-sacrificing heroines in miniature. We have only to look about us, and have our ears open, and see, and hear, and remember for ourselves, that female wonders are of all ages and every age, and that God never measures them by feet or inches, nor counts their years, nor weighs them in any other than the scales with which He weighed the earth itself, at the beginning.
A long train of cars, fourteen or fifteen at least, were hurrying through the Alleghanies. They were crowded with passengers. As they went headlong down the inclined plane, they came to a short, narrow curve, hewed through the living rock, with a high, steep wall on each side. Suddenly a steam-whistle was heard through the gorge, screaming, Put on the brakes! put on the brakes! Every window flew up, and scores of heads were thrust out, and all the passengers sprang to their feet, while the cars went thundering on, with a continually increasing speed. As the engine approached the curve, the engineer had caught a glimpse of a little girl playing on the track with her baby-brother. One moment! and the cars would be tearing over them. The scream of the whistle startled the little girl, and her marvellous readiness and self-possession, like a flash. Seizing her baby-brother, she crowded him into a crevice made by blasting, and just about large enough to admit the little fellow; and the next moment, while the passengers were holding their breath, and expecting to see the poor girl crushed against the steep wall, they heard a clear, sweet, childish voice, like one crying in the wilderness, "Cling close to the rock, Johnny! cling close to the rock!" and saw the baby cuddling up close to the rough wall, as to the bosom of its mother, while the ponderous cars whirled past him like a tornado. Careless for herself, or at the worst, not thinking at all of herself, the poor little barefooted sister stood for a moment like her brother's guardian-angel, between the living and the dead.
No. 50. But just read the following, which is undoubtedly true—true in every particular. Three children belonging to New Brunswick got lost in the woods. It was a dreary, wild region; a dark storm was brewing; it was near nightfall. The eldest, only six, having satisfied herself that there was no hope of their being found, nor of their finding their way out before the next day, put the little ones into a sheltered nook, stripped off most of her own clothes to wrap them in, and went away in search of dry sea-weed and brush, to cover them with. The next day the little ones were found all warm and breathing, with the sea-grass and brush heaped up about them, and the dear little six-year-old mother lying dead and stiff on the shore, alongside of the last pile of brush she had gathered, but wanted the strength to carry off.
No. 51. Three little girls were playing among the poppies and sage-brush of the back-yard. Two of them were making believe keep house, a little way apart, as near neighbors might. At last one of them was overheard saying to the youngest of the lot, "There now, Nellie, you go over to Sarah's house and stop there a little while, and talk as fast as ever you can, and then you come back and tell me what she says about me, and then I'll talk about her; and then you go and tell her all I say, and then we'll get mad as hornets, and won't speak when we meet, just as our mothers do, you know; and that'll be such fun—won't it?" Hadn't these little mischiefs lived to some purpose? and were they not close observers, and apt scholars, charmingly trained for the chief business of life in a small neighborhood?
No. 52. A young hopeful of our acquaintance, under five years of age, has been for a long time debating with himself whether he would be a circus-rider or a brigadier-general. After weighing all theprosandcons, he has decided for the circus. What a pity some of our brigadiers had not gone through a similar process in the late war—and arrived at the same conclusion! We should have been spared many a blundering mishap.
No. 53. A three-year-old baby in Georgetown, D.C., having watched the operations of newsboys and letter-carriers while distributing circulars, newspapers, etc., took from his father's desk a large pile of business letters, and began the process of distribution with astonishing success; but, after all, brought no blushes to anybody's cheek, so far as we have reason to believe, notwithstanding the example set him by the little boy with his sister's love-letters, already mentioned. See No. 20.
Well do I remember a little chubby fellow strutting through the country kitchen of his father, when I myself was but a broth of a boy, with a heap of folded papers sticking out of his trousers' pocket. "These be all writs, by George!" said he, slapping his thigh as he went along. Upon further inquiry, we found that he was imitating a new deputy-sheriff, who used to come a-courting there Sabba'-days.
No. 54. A young gentleman of only six at the outside, was cruelly beset by a baby of eighteen months, with decided manifestations of fondness. "Don't you see, Johnny, that the baby wants to kiss you?" said his mother. "Yes 'm—'at's 'cause he tates me for his papa," was the explanation of Lilliput. My own little fellow used to complain that the servant-girls were always under his feet, when he invaded the kitchen.
No. 55. While crossing a steam-ferry, a little three-year-old exclaimed, as he saw a sail-boat, "O, mamma! there's a boat with a bonnet on"—a poke-bonnet, of course.
No. 56. And sometimes the best of us get more than we have bargained for, while trying to enlighten these will-o'-the-wisps. A preacher, who was talking to the boys in a pleasant, familiar way at the New-Hampshire State Reform-School, about good people being respected while the naughty were despised and shunned, ventured on an illustration suited to their capacities. "Now, boys, when I walk through the streets, and I speak to some people, and not to others, what is the reason?" "'Cause some are rich and some are poor," yelped a little fellow in the corner; who, it may be, never heard of the Apostle James, nor of what he says in Chapter II. about the rich man coming into your assembly with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and also a poor man in vile raiment, and you say to the first, "Sit thou here in a good place; and to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit under my footstool;" yet was he learned in the Scripture nevertheless, and that without knowing it,—God Almighty being his teacher.
No. 57. Can this be true? If yea, that child must have died young. It is from theLawrence Eagle. "In a gentleman's family in this city," says the editor, "there is a little boy somewhat remarkable for smartness, and for his understanding of 'pure English undefiled.' He is only four. Not many days since, he was at the table 'cutting up' in the usual way, when his mother reproved him. Upon this he began buttering a huge slice of bread at such a furious rate, that his mother found it necessary to interfere again: 'Why Johnny,' said she, 'how you do behave! You mustn't eat so much butter; it will be the death of you.' The little chap looked up with a roguish smile, and said, 'Well, mother, I mean to go well buttered, you see, if I am not so wellbread.'" This the editor was kind enough to explain, by enclosing "bred" in a parenthesis, after the style of newspaper purveyors, who seem to take it for granted that most of their capital jokes are unintelligible to the common reader.
No. 58. Little Daisy's mother was trying to make her understand the meaning ofsmile. "Oh yes, I know," said the little one, her face all lighting up as she spoke, "it is the whisper of a laugh." Quite equal to the "frozen music" of architecture, or the "poetry of motion."Sed quære, as the lawyers say, Was such a thing ever said by a little child? I know not.
No. 59. But here is something we can believe. A buxom Ohio school-girl was going through her calisthenic performances for the amusement of her little brothers and sisters. A youthful visitor, full of compassion for the poor thing, asked her brotherif that gal had fits? "No," replied the indignant brother, "them's gymnastics." "Oh, I see; how long has she had 'em?" which reminds me that I was once asked by a laborer, who saw half a hundred stout fellows exercising in the open air, bare-headed, with their jackets off, in Vœlker's London Gymnasium at St. John's Wood, "How much we got a day?"
No. 60. But the inquisitiveness of these folks, who are to govern the world hereafter, is not confined to every-day investigations; and well for us that they are not: and well must it be for the nations—for what our children are now, that will our country be hereafter.
"Mamma, how does God born people black?" said a sprightly little whippersnapper, who had been listening to a talk about the freedmen.
"By His great power."
"Well, I guess He must have a great big pot of blackin', and then He smooches 'em all over, jess as soon as they are borned."
"No, no, my dear—that would soon rub off," said mamma.
After a while a very earnest, exulting little voice was heard from underneath the bedclothes, saying, "I know now, mamma! He mixes the blackin' with the dust."
Set down that child for a thorough-going investigator—never to be put off with anything short of demonstration—like Sir Humphrey Davy, or Faraday.
No. 61. And then, too, how jealous they are of their little prerogatives, and how they stand up for themselves, when hard pushed! A returned Californian found the baby he had left in her mother's lap, a smart little wayward minx of five summers. One day he happened to offend her ladyship, when she exclaimed, "There now! I do wish you'd never married into the family."
No. 62. Freddy, a sunny-haired little fellow, just beginning to say "I shall be five next year about this time," after sitting awhile as if lost in thought, broke out with, "Say, pa, can God do anything?" "Yes, dear." "Can He make a two-year old colt in two minutes?" "Why—He wouldn't want to do that, Freddy." "But I say pa, if He did want to, could He do it?" "Yes, certainly," answered the father, somewhat annoyed at the child's pertinacity. "What! in two minutes, pa?" "Yes, in two minutes." "Well, then, the colt wouldn't be two years old, would he?" There's a logician for you—ay, and metaphysician too; but there! don't they swarm about our supper-tables and Sabbath-schools, just now, like the frogs in Egypt?
No. 63.Putting it Home.—A little Berkshire five-year-old began to be ravenous about bed-time, and was afraid to ask for more supper. At last, after pondering the question awhile, he said, "Mother, are little children that starve to death happy after they die?" Of course that child drew extra rations for once.
No. 64. "Sammy," said a young mother to her darling, "Sammy dear, do you understand the difference between body and soul?" "Don't think I do, ma—that is, not exactly." "Shall mother try to make it clear to him?" "Yes, mamma." "Well, then," patting his arms and shoulders, "this is the body. The soul is what you live with; the body carries you about." "You, mamma—and who is you?" "Never mind now—this, as I told you," touching him again on the shoulders and arms, "this is the body; but there is something underneath, something deeper in. You can feel it now. What is it?" "O, I know!" said he, with a flash of delighted intelligence overspreading every feature, "it is my flannel undershirt." Of course it was! What other soul had he any idea of after mamma was done with him?
No. 65.O Hush!—A gentleman was admiring the beautiful hair of a young, handsome, fashionable widow, when her little girl, who had no idea of being overlooked, observed, with a fling and a pout, "I guess my hair would look well too, if I took as much care of it. Mamma never sleeps in her hair." Of course pollywog took a lesson, after bed-time, with the young ladies who "tingle, skeem, an' dance."
No. 66. A clergyman of astonishing pertinacity, having tired out a large congregation long before he had reached his tenthly, stopped to take breath and wipe the sweat from his forehead, and was just beginning afresh, when a little miss, just under the pulpit, exclaimed, "O mother! he aint a-goin' to stop at all! he is a-swellin' up again."
No. 67. A fine manly little fellow of five years tumbled on the door-step and cut his upper lip, so that a surgeon had to sew it up. He sat in his mother's lap during the operation, pale and speechless, though large tears gathered in his eyes, and seemed just ready to fall. "O dear!" said she, as the doctor finished off, "I'm afraid it will leave a bad scar." "Never mind," said Charley, patting her on the cheek, "never mind, mother, darling, my mustache will cover it!"
There's a hero for you. How much better than Nelson's "Kiss me, Hardy."
No. 68. A boy who was warmly praised for not having once taken his eyes off the preacher, answered, in the honesty of his little heart, "O, I only wanted to see how near he was to the end."
No. 69. A Sandusky mother—was she a gipsy?—so runs the little story, was reproving her three-year-old perplexity for eating icicles. "I didn't eat 'em, mamma," said he, "I only sucked the juice out of 'em." Worthy of any bar on earth, and of almost any special pleader in politics or law, metaphysics or political economy.
No. 70. "The little darling! It didn't strike neighbor Smith's poor little baby a-purpose, did he? It was a mere accident, wasn't it, dear?" "Yes, mamma, to be sure it was, an' if he don't behave himself an' stop makin' mouths at me, I'll crack him again."
No. 71. "Well Susie, how do you like your school?" "O, ever so much, papa." "That's right, Susie. And now tell me what you have learned to-day?" "Well, papa, I've learned the names of all the little boys."
And what more would you have? though the young lady were at a boarding-school, and learning the polka, and the waltz, or the schottische?
No. 72. "I say, my fine fellow, where's this road go to?" "It hain't ben nowhere sence we've lived in these parts." A legal question put to a witness on the stand, legally answered—hey?
No. 73. "I do wish you would behave!" said a boy to his little sister, in a fit of impatience. "Don't speak so to your sister," said mamma, "she is a good little girl on the whole." "I don't see where thegoodcomes in," he replied. "It comes in right after thea," said the little bepraised. Wasn't she smart?—or "just as cunnin' as shecouldbe?"
No. 74. "What did you use to do, mamma, before you was married?" asked a little cherub, not four years old. "Well, my dear, I had a very good time, generally." "A good time!" he exclaimed with a look of astonishment, "what! without me?" Such babies will never allow themselves to be undervalued, even to the last. Theywill be missed, if they are notmastered. Not so bad—hey?
No. 75. A gentlewoman—I hate ladies—belonging to Gardiner, Maine, paid a visit to the graveyard with her little daughter. Seeing the effigy of a horse on one of the upright slabs, she stooped down to read the inscription, but nothing did she find to explain the mystery; whereupon the child whispered, that "maybe the poor man died ofnightmare." A very plausible conjecture, was it not, for a region where so many live and die of the same ailment? now under the name of apoplexy, and now under that of the heart disease, or plethora?
No. 76. A little creature, under three years of age, on being told that she was too little to have a muff, asked, with a bright flush over her whole face, "Am I too little to be cold?" Another, on being refused admission to the church, upon the ground that she was too young, asked if she was too young to sin and be sorry for it?
No. 77. Another three-year-old, on returning from her first visit to church, asked for a cup of water, that she might christen her doll, just as the preacher did the baby. And why not—if mother had failed to enlighten her upon the subject of infant baptism?
No. 78. Two little girls, both under six, were overheard in conversation about their neighbors. "Emma," said one of them, "wouldn't it be awful if somebody should up and shoot our school-mistress?" "Yes indeed," was the reply; "but then, wouldn't it be nice not to have any school?"
No. 79. A little boy once asked a godly minister, "Do you think my father will go to heaven?" "Yes," replied the minister. "Well then,Itellyou, if he can't have his own way there, he won't stay long, you bet."
No. 80.Tit for Tat.—The family were at dinner. The conversation turned upon a trip to the islands, about to take place. A clergyman spoke to the little one, and after some bantering, asked her if she could say the alphabet backward. "No sir," said she, wondering what next, as the tadpole did when his tail dropped off. "Then," said he, "you can't go to the islands." After looking very thoughtful for a few moments, she asked, "Can you say the Lord's Prayer backward?" "No, my dear." "Then," said she, "you can't go to heaven." Was not the inference honest and fair, granting the premises?
No. 81. A little blue-eyed maiden, who was romping with her fifth Christmas doll, and listening to some conversation about unhappy marriages, incompatibilities of temper, and the Chicago recipe for unmarrying, turned to her mother and said, "Well, ma, I'm never going to marry. I'm going to be a widow." The dear little chatterbox! If she could only have kept her own counsel a few years longer. How many are there who would like being widows, without going through the form of marriage? but then, they'll never say so, for widows have their privileges, and privileges, too, that wives have not.
No. 82. And here we have something out of the common way, well vouched for, and thoroughly safe to be repeated. A little boy of only eight years, a son of Mr. Elias Bates, drove to the Agricultural Fair in Medford, Mass., a pair of black calves, which were so perfectly trained as to draw a little blue wagon, which had been got up for the occasion. The little fellow—and this, probably, will be thought the best part of the story by most of our young readers,—was furnished withscripfrom the wallets of the bystanders to the amount of nobody knows how many dollars; enough, at any rate, to nearly fill his cap. Whereat, says the narrator, he was so entirely overcome with surprise and joy, that he cried, and laughed, tried to talk, and then fairly broke down, and took to his heels, and ran away, as if the dogs were after him.
No. 83. Lilly and Nina had prepared a doll's breakfast, and arrayed it on a side-board, while they went to take a romp in the garden. Master Bob, their little brother, clambered up the side-board and began gobbling the dainties, as boys will do, you know, whatever may be their age. "Why, Bobby!" said his mother, looking in at the open door, "whatareyou doing there?" "Playin' pussy, mamma."
No. 84. At a country fair in New Jersey, not long ago, a little boy who was running about, like a distracted thing, and bawling as if he would split his throat, was asked what was the matter. "I want my mammy," said he, "that's what's the matter! Didn't I tell the darned thing she'd lose me?"
No. 85. A little four-year-old went to church in Bridgeport, Connecticut, last summer. On getting home, her mother asked her if she remembered the text. "O yes, mamma; it was this: 'The Ladies Sewing Circle will meet at Mrs. So-and-so's house, on Monday afternoon.'" A capital text, whatever may have been the sermon.
No. 86. A Boston boy, five years of age, and a type of many now flourishing there, if not a type of that class who are to be the gold-brokers of hereafter, at least a representative boy of the shrewd and calculating, now on their way up in the cashier-business, which so often ends of late in there being neither cash-herenor cash-therefor stockholders, having stolen, or appropriated, a can of milk, was taken solemnly to task for the misdemeanor by his loving mother. "What on earth were you going to do with the milk?" said she. "O, I was going to steal a little puppy to drink it," was the reply. Perfectly satisfactory, no doubt, like certifying checks by the handful, and appropriating, orconveying, the gold of widows and orphans by the wheelbarrow-load into a friend's pocket, or in speculating where what you gain is yours, and what you lose, another's.
No. 87. A clergyman asked some children why we say Our Fatherwho art in Heaven, since God is everywhere? A little drummer-boy, who stood afar off, looked as if he understood the question. "Well, my little soldier, what have you to say?" "Because it's head-quarters," he replied.
No. 88. "A little nephew of ours," says a contributor, "went with his sister to school not long ago, for the first time. They kept him there five mortal hours, with a short recess, which he did not know how to take advantage of. On being asked how he enjoyed the school, he answered, 'Petty well, I tank you, but I dut awfullyrested.'"
No. 89.A Specimen of Childish Faith, which, if not dwarfed nor blighted, would be enough—almost—to move Mountains, after getting its growth.—Two little girls, one nine and the other eleven, on getting up one morning, had a trial to see which would get dressed first. Little Sue was the winner; and turning to her sister, with the triumphant air of a victor at the Olympian games, she said, "I knew I should beat you, Sissy; for I asked God to help me,and I knew He would."
No. 90. A fine-looking, saucy, high-spirited girl of ten, bought of a fashionable shoe-maker a pair of warranted boots. They broke out with one day's wear. She carried them back to him. After turning them over, inside and out, awhile, he said, "They were not taken in quite enough, I see." "No," she replied, "but I was."
No. 91. A promising little chap having heard it stated confidentially that a neighbor was married, and that she had a little boy and girl, stowed the fact away for future use; and not long after reproduced it in a large company of ladies and gentlemen, after this fashion: "Miss M——, I tink our tortus-shell tat's ben dittin married—she's dut tittens." But tortoise-shell cats don't have kittens—at least, not of themselves, if by proxy; butqui facit per alium facit per se, as the lawyers say; and the little boy may have misunderstood the symptoms.
No. 92. Charley, the other day, on seeing three or four funerals in swift succession, expressed a wish that he might die "before Heaven was too full."
No. 93. A mother, out a-shopping with her little girl and boy, bought him a rubber balloon, which escaped while he was playing with it, and went off up into the sky. Sissy, on seeing the tears in his eyes, and his quivering chin, said, "Never mind, Neddy—when you dies and dose to Heaben, you'll dit it."
No. 94. A Bible-class had been called upon for the names of the precious stones mentioned in the Scriptures. After the question had gone through the class, one little fellow held up his hand. "Well, Tommy," said the teacher, "what precious stone have you found?" "Brimthtone, thir!"
No. 95. This beautiful anecdote must be given in the very words of the narrator: "A lady visiting New York, found a ragged, cold, and hungry child gazing wistfully at some cakes in a shop window. She took the little forlorn thing by the hand, led her into the shop, bought her a cake, and then led her away, and supplied her other wants. The grateful little creature looked her full in the face, and whispered, 'Are you God's wife?'"
No. 96. A fashionable woman called upon a dentist to have some teeth filled, taking with her a little niece. Among these were two front incisors, which were filled on the lower edge. In a pleasant mood, when everything went well with Aunty, glimpses of the gold were occasionally seen. "O Aunt Mary," said the child, "how I should like to have copper-toed teeth, like yours!"
And this reminds me of a little boy, whose father was bald-headed. One day he was sent to have his hair cut. "How would you like to have it cut, my little man?" said the artist. "Like papa's, with a hole in the top," said he,—perhaps to see through.
No. 97. Master Jimmy was standing on his father's steps, in broad daylight, smoking a cigar. "Why, Jim," said a neighbor, who was hurrying by, "when did you learn to smoke?" "O," says the boy—"when I was a little fellow!"
No. 98. "Papa," said a small urchin with a mischievous eye—"I say, papa, ought the master to flog a fellar for what he didn't do?" "Certainly not, my boy." "Well, then, he flogged me to-day when I didn't do my sum." And there he had him!
No. 99. And this, too, is vouched for—though not by me: A little girl, about five years old, heard a preacher vociferating in prayer till the roof rang again. "Mother," said the little one, "don't you think, if he lived nearer to God, he wouldn't have to pray so loud?" Maybe she had been told about the priests of Baal, and their shouting before the Hebrew prophet, who mocked them.
No. 100. Bishop Simpson, they say, in a lecture delivered at Boston, had the courage to say, that in two or three years, at furthest, Chinese servants would be common there. Next morning the father happened to mention it. "O, pa," whispered Minnie, "won't it be nice! we shall have a Chinese servant, and she will eat all the rats, and so we sha'n't have to keep a cat!"
No. 101. A youngster, who had been playing in a mud-puddle till his rubber boots were full of the dirty water, came home at last to report progress, and ask leave to sit again. But his mother, with an eye to doctor's bills, and a whooping-cough, or scarlet fever, said No; and the child was kept in the house all day, till he could bear it no longer. "O mamma!" said he, at last, "please whip me, and let me go out again—do." It seems that he had outwaded all the rest of the boys, without going much beyond his depth.
No. 102. Children are wonders. No matter how well acquainted with them we may be, they are always taking us off our feet. A pious woman heard a child, as she thought, say—and the child, too, of godly parents—"Dam it to hell—who buys?"—having a basket on his arm, containing she knew not what, so shocked was she. On reporting the case at head-quarters, the affair was investigated, and it turned out that the poor little fellow had a bushel of damsons, which he made believe hawk round, after the fashion of small dealers who cry their wares in the street. What he tried to say was, "Damsons to sell—who buys?"
No. 103. "How many sisters did you say, my dear?" "Only one beside myself." "And how many brothers?" "None at all." "What! no brother!" "No sir; mamma don'tapproveof boys." That's a fact.
No. 104. A little nigger-boy at the South had just been equipped with a new suit of clothes, the first he ever had in his life, you may be sure. Next morning he appeared with one leg of the trousers ripped up from shoe to waistband. On being asked how it happened, he answered, "Please ma'am, I wanted to hear itflop!"
No. 105. Another little boy, while playing by himself on the carpet, burst out with a ringing laugh. On being questioned, it turned out that he had taken off the tail of a little toy pony, and stuck it into the pony's mouth. "Papa," said he, "do Dod see everything?" "Yes, my boy." "Well, then, I dess Dod will laugh, when He sees my pony."
No. 106. "I have somewhere met with a story," says a pleasant, gossiping observer, "about a man who went, one dark night, to steal corn from his neighbor's patch. He had taken his little boy with him to keep watch. The man jumped over the fence with a large bag on his arm; but before he began to fill it, he stopped and looked about on all sides, and, not seeing anybody, was just going to work, when his little boy cried out, 'Oh, father, father! there is one way you haven't looked yet!'
"The old man was rather startled, and asked what he meant.
"'Why,' said the little one, 'you forgotto look up.'
"The father was silent—thunder-struck—as if he had been admonished by a little guardian angel: he went back to the fence, took his little boy by the hand, and hurried away without the corn."
No. 107. A mother was reading to her child, a boy of seven, about another little boy whose father had lately died, leaving the family destitute, whereupon the boy went to work for himself, and managed to support them all.
"Now, my little man," said mother, after she had finished the story, "if papa should be taken away, wouldn't you like to help your poor mother and your little sisters?"
"Why, ma—what for? Ain't we got a good house to live in?"
"O yes, my child; but we couldn't eat the house, you know."
"Well—ain't we got flour and sugar, and other things in the store-room?"
"Certainly, my dear; but they wouldn't last long—and what then?"
"Well—ain't there enough to last, till you could get another husband?"
Mammadried up—just as the boy hadslopped over.
No. 108. A mother had been telling her little girl about the blessings above. "But will mamma be there too?" asked the child.
"Yes; you and I, and little brother, and papa." "O no, mamma," said she—"papa can't go; papa can't leave the store."
No. 109. A little four-year-old, living just out of New York, was saying the Lord's Prayer at his mother's knee. After he had finished, she said to him—
"Now, Sandy, ask God to make you a good boy."
The child hesitated, grew thoughtful, and, after a few minutes, looked up and whispered—
"It's no use, mamma—He won't do it, I tell you; I've asked Him ever so many times."
No. 110. A little girl, the daughter of a Brooklyn wife, had been listening to an argument about the occupations above, and the great Hereafter. Turning suddenly to her aunt, she asked what people found to do after they went to Heaven. Her aunt, being taken by surprise, answered, "O, they play on golden harps." "What—all the time!" "Yes—all the time, dear." "Then," said the child, "I don't want to go there—I should besotired; and, what is more, I don't like the music."
No. 111. "Is it still raining, my dear?" said a mother to her child of only three, at Jamaica, L. I. The child, after looking out of the window, turned to her mother and said, "No, mamma, it ain't a-rainin' now, but the trees is leakin'." The same child, having a habit of putting pins in her mouth, was anxiously watched. Whenever she was very still, they knew she was in some mischief. The other day, on seeing her stand at the bureau in perfect silence, her mother began to have her suspicions. "Mary," said she, "you are playing with pins, I'm afraid; I hope you haven't got any in your mouth." "I ain't dut any in my mouth now," she said; "but I bin playin' pins is meat."
No. 112. One round more, and I throw up the sponge. The same little wee thing—a granddaughter of my own, by the way, and the first of the series—mentioned in No. 10, who spelledpigeonwithQ. U. A. I. L., and pronounced itfidget, was looking at a hive, in a book for babies. "O," she shouted—"O, grandpa, I know what them is! They's the honeys, and when they go away, I mean to steal theirporridge." N. B.—She had always called honey porridge.
No. 113. Once—and I give this for a fine illustration of the total depravity we hear so much of—I had a pleasant specimen of the inward working of that self-reproach we are all tried with sometimes, in this way: Miss Nellie seemed shy of me one morning, when she came into the breakfast room. Instead of running up to grandpa with a kiss upon her little red lips, she kept aloof, and went wandering about beyond my reach, with her eyes fastened on me all the time. At last, unable to bear it longer, she whimpered, "Oo needn't look at me so, grandpa; I ony toot one tawbelly."
No. 114. "High, there, high!" said Grandfather Hall to my little boy—the first we had. "You don't know where you are." "Yes I do, grandpa." "Well, where are you?" "I'm here," was the reply.
No. 115.Analogy.—"What the plague is that?" said a father to his little boy, as a dog ran past them with a muzzle over his head. "Well, I guess it's a littlehoop-skirt," said the boy.
No. 116.Prepare to Pucker!—A little four-year-old chap had been trying a long while to pucker his mouth into shape, for whistling a national tune, which he had just heard upon the street. At last he gave it up, and went to his mother with tears in his eyes, exclaiming, "Ma, I's so little I tan't make a hole big enough for Yankee Doolum to dit out."
No. 117.Disinterested Advice.—"Mammy" said another little fellow, just big enough to gobble dough-nuts, and relish mud-pies and lollipop, who had been set to rocking the cradle of his baby brother, of whom he professed to be very fond—very—"Mammy! if the Lord's got any more babies to give away, don't you take 'em."
No. 118.Rather a Paradox.—"What is conscience?" asked a sabbath-school teacher. "An inward monitor," was the reply of a smart little fellow, not large enough to spell ratiocination with safety. "And what is a monitor?" "One of the iron-clads." Ergo.
No. 119.The Reason why.—A boy of nine, having a motherly hen with a large brood of chickens to watch, undertook to satisfy his mother that he would rather be a chicken than a boy—chickens were so much happier. The mother was obstinate, and so was the boy; but the next day he happened to come across a copy of "Don Quixote," with which he was so carried away, that he ran off to his mother to tell her that, on the whole, "he guessed he'd rather be a boy than a chicken;" for, "if I was a chicken," said he, "I couldn't read 'Don Quixote.'"
No. 120.Retribution.—A little four-year-old shaver, living on Munjoy, had picked up some naughty words—nobody knew where. But his mother, to cure him, was in the habit of touching the tip of his tongue with a little black pepper, until he seemed to have abandoned the practice. Only last week, however, the Old Adam broke out afresh, and he ran off to his mother, saying, "Dod dam it! Dod dam it! Now dit your pepper-bots!" and then rushed to the table and grabbed the box, and turned it up for the prescribed allowance; but the cover came off—as might have been expected—filling his mouth, so that he could neither speak nor breathe for awhile, and looked upon it as a judgment, and has now left off swearing—for the present.
No. 121.Influence of Example.—"I've done it, mamma! I've done it!" screamed a little three-year-old tantrybogus, from the top of the cellar stairs, to his mother, who had just left the kitchen for a few minutes. "Tum and tee, mamma!" And sure enough, he haddone it! having upset a basket of eggs, and smashed them all, one after another, in a sort of ecstacy. His mother had been preparing for a batch of cake, and he had been delighted with her treatment of the eggs.
No. 122.Appropriate Language.—"Auntie," said another little three-year-old, one day—"Auntie, I don't lite mine apons tarched so drefful. So much tarchess makes the tiffness tratch my—bareness."
No. 123.After-thoughts.—Master Frank was in the habit of tumbling out of bed o' nights, and his father would call him to account for it next morning. One day he said, "Well, Frank, and so you tumbled out of bed again?" "No I didn't, papa—it was the pillow; for I went up to see, and the pillow was on the floor, by the bed-side." "What made you cry, then, my boy?" "Well, you see, it was so dark, papa, I couldn't tell at first whether 'twas me or the pillow."
No. 124.Baby Theologians.—A child in the sabbath-school, on being asked if he could mention a place where God was not, answered, "He is not in the thoughts of the wicked."
Another, when told that God was everywhere, asked, "In this room?" "Yes." "In the closet?" "Yes." "In the drawers of my desk?" "Yes—everywhere—He's in your pocket now." "No He ain't, though." "And why not?" "Tauth, I ain't dut no pottet."
No. 125.A great Mystery.—"There is a little girl in Kentucky," says a respectable paper, judging by appearances, "who has never spoken to her father. She talks freely with anybody else, but when her father speaks to her, she is speechless. They have whipped her, again and again, but to no purpose; for she declares, with trembling lips, and with tears in her eyes, that she has often tried to speak to him, but could not."
No. 126.Childish Metaphysics.—A grandson of the governor of Virginia, a child of only four or five summers, was on a visit, not long ago, to his maternal grandfather, a large landholder in Ohio. One day, after a first visit to the sabbath-school, he led his grandfather down to a magnificent tree, heavily laden with walnuts.
"Grandpa," said he, "whom do all these woods and fields belong to?"—of course the child saidwho, instead ofwhom; but that is neither here nor there.
"They belong to me, Charley."
"No, sir—no!—they belong to God."
The grandfather said nothing, till they reached the tree.
"Well, my boy, whom does this tree belong to?" he asked, as they stopped underneath its wide, heavy branches.
For a moment, Charley hesitated; and then, looking up into the tree, he said, while his mouth watered visibly, "Well, gran'father, the tree belongs to God, but the walnuts areours."
No. 127. "A touch of Nature makes the whole world kin."—A little boy, who had been tormented by clouds of mosquitoes till he could bear it no longer, exclaimed, "O dear me! O dear me! I do wish God would kill the mosquitoes! I don't know what I would give Him, if He only would."
No. 128.An Etymologist.—A Connecticut boy insisted on knowing what was meant by the slang phrase, "a gone sucker"; and was overheard praying soon after, on being sent off to bed—"God bless papa and mamma, and baby; but I'se been such a bad boy, I rather guess I'ma gone sucker."
No. 129. "How old are you, my dear?" said a railroad conductor to a little gentlewoman, whose mother was trying to pass with a half ticket. "I'm nine at home," was the reply, "but in the cars I'm only half-past six."
No. 130.A fair Inference.—Dear little Mamie H., who had just got over her sixth birthday, was studying her sabbath-school lesson, when her mother told her, in reply to some question she had urged with a deal of earnestness, that the naughty devil was black. "Well, then, mamma," said the child, "if he was a good devil, I s'pose he'd be white."
No. 131.Grandchildren on their Good Behavior.—Bishop, to Nellie peeping through the side-lights, with a big tom-cat in her arms. "Come and see me, Nellie."
"No—I tan't."
Bishop.—"Come come, and bring the cat with you; I want to see her."
"No, no! Tommy don't like Bishops."
No. 132.A Baby Spendthrift.—"I say, Bobby," said one little youngster to another, "lend me two cents, will yer? I got up so early, that I spent all my money 'fore breakfast."
"More fool you."
"Wal!—how should I know the day was goin' to be so long?"
No. 133.A Maxim well applied.—"Never put off till to-morrow, my dear boy, what you can do to-day," said a watchful mother to her inquiring son. "Yes, mamma, and so we'll have the raspberry-pie now, that's put away for to-morrow—shan't we, mamma?"
No. 134.A fair Inference.—At a sabbath-school concert in a crowded and popular church, the pastor, who prided himself on the quickness and cleverness of his little ones, said, "Boys, when I heard your beautiful songs to-night, I had to work hard to keep my feet still; now what do you think was the trouble with them?" "Chilblainth!" shouted a little chap of six, or thereabouts.
No. 135.A timely Rebuke.—A bright-eyed little fellow, in one of the Brooklyn private-schools, having spelt a word, was asked by his teacher, "Are you willing to bet you're right, Bennie?" The boy looked up with an air of astonishment, and replied, "IknowI'm right, Miss V——, but I never bet."
No. 136.A dangerous Query.—A pupil was asked what S double E spelt. Being rather slow with his answer, the teacher grew impatient, and exclaimed, "You dunce! What is it I do with my eyes?" "O', I know the word now, ma'am—S double E,squint."
No. 137.Constructiveness.—The Springfield Republican tells of a young gentleman who doesn't want to be the last angel God makes, because "he wants to see how He makes 'em."
No. 138.Imitation.—A little girl at Keokuk, Iowa, was lately found in a barn giving trapèze performances to quite a gathering of wee folks. They had fitted up a trapèze, with an old clothes-line and a broomstick, at an elevation of twenty feet. "The party was broken up," says a spectator, "before anything else was broken."