_Melange_ of child-songs. We have never, indeed, got at any time far
away from the lively and interesting little fellow; and, that being so,
perhaps no item could more fittingly close the series than the very old
song of
ROBIN REDBREAST'S TESTAMENT.
Gude-day now, bonnie Robin,
How long have you been here?
I've been bird about this bush
This mair than twenty year!
But now I am the sickest bird
That ever sat on brier;
And I wad mak' my testament,
Gudeman, if ye wad hear.
Gae tak' this bonnie neb o' mine,
That picks upon the corn;
And gie't to the Duke o' Hamilton
To be a hunting-horn.
Gae tak' these bonnie feathers o' mine,
The feathers o' my neb;
And gi'e to the Lady o' Hamilton
To fill a feather-bed.
Gae tak' this gude richt leg o' mine,
And mend the brig o' Tay;
It will be a post and pillar gude--
Will neither bow nor gae.
And tak' this other leg o' mine,
And mend the brig o' Weir;
It will be a post and pillar gude--
Will neither bow nor steer.
Gae tak' thae bonnie feathers o' mine,
The feathers o' my tail:
And gie to the lads o' Hamilton
To be a barn-flail.
And tak' thae bonnie feathers o' mine,
The feathers o' my breast:
And gie to ony bonnie lad
Will bring to me a priest.
Now in there came my Lady Wren
Wi' mony a sigh and groan:
O what care I for a' the lads
If my ain lad be gone!
Then Robin turned him roundabout,
E'en like a little king;
Go; pack ye out o' my chamber-door,
Ye little cutty quean!
Robin made his testament
Upon a coll of hay;
And by cam' a greedy gled
And snapt him a' away.
CHILDREN'S HUMOUR AND QUAINT SAYINGS.
The humours of little folks, fresh and original, and invariably of the
unconscious variety, and their quaint sayings, unrehearsed and uttered
regularly without regard to effect--though with merciless honesty
often--form a never-palling treat; and every man and woman who has
reared a family, or has had joy in the society of other people's
children, has his and her own budget, comprising tit-bits at once
interesting, startling, and amusing. When occasion has saved us from the
foolishly doting parent who is everlastingly prosing about the very
clever things his own little Johnnie has said or done, I have seldom
found greater enjoyment of a mixed company than when the queer sayings
of children went round the board, and we had "recollections," by
suggestion, of things which perhaps had been better left unsaid, as also
of things which had been more agreeably expressed if differently worded;
yet all so honestly set forth that even the "victims" could not help but
enjoy them in some measure. Children accept all statements so
implicitly, and, with their quick-working wits, they reason so
straight-forwardly, that the application when voiced comes at times with
a bang sufficient to take one's breath away. Given this and that,
however, an application is unavoidable. As lief set fire behind powder
in a gun and expect there will be no report. A mite of five, thus, will
on occasion utter a syllogism that would not discredit a professor of
logic, or will put a question to which a whole college of theologians
might not venture an answer. A little lady of my acquaintance who had
not yet seen her fourth birthday, was one morning told by her mother
that she could not get out to play--the frost was too severe. "Who makes
the frost, ma?" was asked. "God, dear." "What does He make frost for?"
"To kill the worms." "And why does He make worms, and has to make frost
to kill them?" This was a sufficient poser, but the mother continued,
"The worms have to be killed, else they would eat the roots of all the
plants and flowers." The little lady reflected, then gravely asked, "But
does God kill the wee chicky worms that never eated any roots?" The
mother did not answer, but looked now even more grave than the child.
The same little miss was listening one evening to a newspaper report
being read, which told how a man in a storm of wind had been blown with
a ladder from a house-top in Glasgow, and was killed. "Who makes the
wind?" she asked sharply. She was told. "And does God make the bad winds
that kills the mans?" was demanded. There was no reply; but she read the
silence as meaning "yes," and turning to leave the room she muttered
more to herself than otherwise, "When I die and go to Heaven I'll not
sit beside God." When repeating the _Pater-noster_ one evening she stuck
at the first sentence, and wanted to know "If God is our Father in
Heaven who is our Mother in Heaven?" But the mother was saved this time
by the interposition of the little one's elder brother, who, with stern
emphasis, exclaimed, "Stupid! God's wife, of course." A little
boy-relative of that girl returned from school one day, while he was but
a pupil in the infant department, and stepping proudly up to where his
father was seated, "Pa," he exclaimed, "I am the cleverest boy in the
class." "Indeed," returned the parent, "I am proud to hear that; but who
said it?" "The teacher." "If the teacher said so, it surely must be
true. What did she say, though?" "She said, 'Stand up the cleverest boy
in the class,' and I stood up." The same little fellow was on the way to
school with a friend one morning, towards the end of December, when the
two were attracted by the appearance of a sweep on the chimney of a
neighbouring building. "I ken what that man's doin' up there," he
asserted; "he's sweepin' the lums for Santa Claus to get doon." And that
recalls the story I once heard of a little man in the Carse of Gowrie.
It happened on an evening towards the close of the year, as he was
preparing for bed, and was sitting by the fire with his first liberated
stocking in his hand, that he looked over to his mother, and "Mither,"
he asked, "will I get a pair o' new stockin's before Christmas?" "Maybe,
laddie; but what gars ye speir?" "Because"--and he spoke mournfully, as
he stuck his fingers through a large hole in the toe--"if Santa Claus
puts onything intil thir anes, it'll fa' oot." How cleverly they reason,
you see! "Bring me a drink o' water, Johnnie," was the order delivered
by a Perthshire farmer to his little son one day a good many years ago.
The boy went to do as he was asked, but the water-stoup had been nearly
empty, and, as he was approaching his parent with the liquid, he paused
and peered doubtfully into the hand-vessel, then, as if suddenly
inspired by a happy thought, "Will I put meal in't, father?" he asked.
"No." "Oh, weel, then"--and he turned to go back--"ye'll need to wait
till somebody gangs to the well." But to return to children I have known
for yet one or two more illustrations. I was at a tea-table one
afternoon where the company was mostly composed of the smaller fry, and
an incident, important to all, was mentioned, which had happened some
seven or eight years before. Several of the older children declared,
truthfully, that they remembered it quite well. "So do I mind o' it,"
asserted a little fellow about five. "How could you mind o' it?"
questioned scornfully an older brother; "you wasna born at the time." "I
ken," as scornfully returned the younger theologian; "I was dust at the
time; but I mind o' it weel enough." Here is the verbatim copy of a
letter written since by the hand of that same boy--in a country village
in Perthshire--where he has been staying continuously for several years,
and addressed to his father in Glasgow:--"Dear Pa, The Rabbits is all
dead. Worried with dogs. The gold fishes is dead. Died with the cold.
The cat has had kittens, four of them, and the rest of us is all well."
The remark of a prominent Scottish novelist who recently passed the
epistle through his hands was--"That's style, the most crisp and
picturesque. And then--'the rest of us'--how beautifully innocent!"
The little girl of a friend of mind--while still of very tender
years--was first taken to church by her aunt. On the way home, and soon
after leaving the portals of the sacred edifice, she looked up solemnly
in her guardian's face, and, "Auntie," she asked, "was yon God on the
mantel-piece?" She referred doubtless to the minister in the pulpit.
Don't think of irreverence, my reader! The child, in its atmosphere of
perfect innocence, knows not the word. And bear that in mind further
when I tell you of a little boy and girl--both of whom I know well--who
were having a walk with me one Sunday in early Autumn, when suddenly a
railway train appeared in view. A train on Sunday! They were staggered
by the sight; and the boy demanded to know why it should be there. "Oh,
I know," exclaimed the girl, after some reflection; "it'll be God coming
back from his holidays." The question, "Can prayer be answered?" may be
often discussed by grown-up minds. It is never raised by the children.
No doubts trouble them in that relation. They are quite certain they
will get what they ask for. Perfect confidence in that alone could have
made it possible for a certain little miss, who, when being put to bed
in a tired condition, and asked to say her prayer, began:--
"This night I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord----"
then gave a long, loud yawn, and added, "Oh God, I am awfully
sleepy--you know the rest"--making thus, in her rude simplicity, a
finely trustful and beautiful prayer. "Give us each day our daily
bread," was the honest petition of a little fellow--who, however,
recalling probably some recent violent experiences, immediately
added--"but dinna let our Lizzie bake it." An elaborately-trained little
fellow who had nightly to pray for blessings on "mamma, and papa,
grandpapa, and grandmamma," and all his uncles, his aunts, and his
cousins, committing each by name, after exhausting the catalogue one
evening, heaved a heavy sigh and exclaimed wearily, "Oh, dear, I wish
these people would pray for themselves, for I am so tired of praying for
them all!"
A little girl, whose baby brother had died, was told that he had gone to
Heaven, and that night she refused to pray--"Take me to Heaven for
Jesus' sake"--because, as she said; "I don't want to go to Heaven, I
want to stay here, with ma, and pa, and dolly." Were all prayers as
honest, many of them, I suspect, would be much shorter than they are.
I have heard of a little boy who was continually being told that he
should be good.
"And if I am gooder, and gooder," he asked, "what will I be?"
"Oh, you will be a little angel."
"But I don't want to be an angel," he retorted; "I want to be an
engine-driver." They are never else than frank in their statements. A
mother who suffers from severe headaches, said to her little girl about
eight, one day not long ago, "What would you do, Lottie dear, if your
darling mother was taken away from you--if she died?" "Well, mother,"
was the little one's startling answer, "I suppose we would cry at
first--then we would bury you, and then we would come home and take all
the money out of your pocket." Now, while it is possible that something
else might also be done, it is almost certain--yea, it is certain,
without doubt--that all these ceremonials, however reluctantly, would,
in turn, be duly performed.
From a story bearing on death to one relating to birth is a transition
not so unnatural as may at the first blush appear. And births are
affairs ever of prime interest to children. Not many years ago it
happened in a village in Perthshire that twins arrived in a family, and
next day one of the little misses of the house was out on the street
playing, when a neighbouring lady came up to where she was, and, "So
you've got two little babies at home, Bizzie," she remarked. "Yes,"
responded the little one, very solemnly; "and do you know, my father was
away at Edinburgh when the doctor brought them. But it was a good thing
my mother was in; for if she hadna, there would have been naebody in the
house but me, and I wadna have kent what to do wi' them." They tell this
delightful story of the little daughter of Professor Van Dyke, of the
Philadelphia University:--
"Papa, where were you born?"
"In Boston, my dear."
"Where was mamma born?"
"In San Francisco."
"And where was I born?"
"In Philadelphia."
"Well, pap, isn't it funny how we three people got together?"
And that now recalls another which Mrs. Keeley, the actress, tells of a
tradesman's little boy who was often taken to stay with his grandmother
and grandfather--the latter a very feeble old man, bald and toothless.
This little fellow was told that his father and mother had "bought" a
nice new baby brother for him. The little man was much interested by the
news, and was taken to see the new arrival. He looked at it with
astonishment for a few seconds, then remarked--"Why, he's got no hair,
father!" This was at once admitted. "And he's got no teeth," observed
the boy again, touching another fact which could not be denied. Then a
long and thoughtful pause ensued, after which the little critic (who had
probably been comparing the baby with his grandfather), observed
confidentially--"I'll tell you what, father; if they called him a new
baby, they've taken you in--he's an old 'un!" You cannot easily get
round children. And it is almost impossible to suppress them. As
touching this fact an excellent story is told of our present King and
his sister, the late Empress of Germany, when they were boy and girl.
Lord----, who had a deformed foot, was invited to Osborne; and before
his arrival the Queen and Prince Albert debated whether it would be
better to warn the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal of his
physical calamity, so as to avoid embarrassing remarks, or to leave the
matter to their own good feeling. The latter course was adopted. Lord
---- duly arrived. The foot elicited no remark from the Royal children,
and the visit passed off with perfect success. But next day the Princess
Royal asked the Queen, "Where is Lord----?" "He has gone back to London,
dear." "Oh, what a pity! He had promised to show Berty and me his foot!"
The _enfants terrible_ had wilily caught his lordship in the corridor,
and made their own terms.
There is pleasure in telling that story were it but for the revelation
it affords of how the children of Kings and Queens are animated by the
same curiosities, and may act at times so like the children of the
commonality. That Royalty again may be moved by the action or word of a
child of common birth we have many pleasing proofs. One is pat. A late
King of Prussia, while visiting in one of the villages of his dominion,
was welcomed by the school children. Their sponsor made a speech for
them. The King thanked them. Then, taking an orange from a plate, he
asked--"To what kingdom does this belong?" "The vegetable kingdom,
sire," replied a little girl. The King next took a gold coin from his
pocket, and, holding it up, asked--"And to what kingdom does this
belong?" "To the mineral kingdom," was the reply. "And to what kingdom
do I belong then?" asked the King. The little girl coloured deeply; for
she did not like to say the "animal kingdom," as he thought she would,
lest His Majesty should be offended. But just then it flashed upon her
mind that "God made man in His own image," and looking up with
brightening eye, she said--"To God's Kingdom, sire." The King was moved.
A tear stood in his eye. He placed his hand on the child's head, and
said, most devoutly--"God grant that I may be accounted worthy of that
Kingdom." Thus did the words of a common child, you see, move the heart
of a King. But, oh, we are all the same. It is only the environment that
is different. And the distinction there even is not so great as one, not
knowing, may be disposed to imagine. In high and low life alike, anyway,
the children, we know, are free; and all alike are susceptible of
eccentricity. What a fine confession of this the Princess of Wales made
not long ago when, as Duchess of York, she was addressing a Girls'
Society in London. As a school-girl, she said, she disliked geography;
of which, she added, she was very ignorant. Once she was set to draw an
outline map of the world from memory. "On showing it to my governess,"
said the Princess, "she said in quite an alarmed manner--'Why, you have
left out China! Don't you know where it is?' 'Yes,' I replied, very
stubbornly, but very loyally, 'I know where it should be, but I am not
going to put it in my map. The Queen is angry with China now, so it has
no right to have a place in the world at all.'" The spirit of
exclusiveness manifested by the little lady might readily be quarrelled
with in some quarters; but surely the act gives promise of a Queen who,
like her to whom she was loyal, will, when her glory cometh--though, may
it be far distant--prove the pride of every loyal Briton!
The somersaultic cleverness by which a child will get out of an awkward
situation has been often revealed, but seldom with more humour than in
the two succeeding illustrations. A minister returning from church
towards the manse on a Sunday, came suddenly on a boy leaning earnestly
over the parapet of a bridge with a short rod and a long string having a
baited hook on the far end, by which he was trying his luck in the burn
beneath. "Boy," he exclaimed severely, "is this a day on which you
should be catching fish?" "Wha's catchin' fish?" drawled the budding
Isaac Walton; "I'm juist tryin' to droon this worm." The next boy was
yet cleverer--alike in fishing and in speech. He had several trout
dangling from his hand by a string when he met the minister abruptly in
a quick bend of the road. There was no chance of escape; but his ready
wit saved him. He walked boldly forward, and taking the first word as
the two were about to meet, he dangled the trout-hand high, looked the
minister square in the face, and exclaimed, "That sorts them for
snappin' at flees on the Sabbath!" and passed hence, leaving his
anticipated accuser flabbergasted.
Ruskin says of children: "They are forced by nature to develop their
powers of invention, as a bird its feathers of flight;" and we might
add, remarks another writer, "that the inventive faculty, like a bird,
is apt, when fully grown, to fly away. Then, when their own imaginative
resources begin to fail them, one observes children begin to read books
of adventure with avidity--at the age, say, of ten or twelve years.
Before that, no Rover of the Andes or Erling the Bold can equal the
heroic achievements they evolve from their inner consciousness." Who,
for instance, could hope to "put a patch" on the experience of those two
little boys who spent a snowy day during the Christmas holidays
tiger-shooting in their father's dining-room; and as one, making his
cautious way among the legs of the dinner-table, for the nonce a
pathless jungle, was hailed by the other with, "Any tigers there, Bill?"
he answered gloriously: "Tigers? I'm knee-deep in them!"
That excellent story recalls to me another, not unlike it. Also of a
Christmas time. The children had asked permission to get up a play, and
it had been granted on the condition that they did it all themselves
without help or hint. As the eldest was only ten they accepted the
condition with alacrity, for young children hate to be interfered with
and hampered by their elders. When the evening came and the family and
audience had collected, the curtain was drawn back and revealed the
heroine (aged nine), who stated with impassioned sobs that her husband
had been in South Africa for the past three years, but that she was
expecting his return. Truly enough the hero (aged ten) entered, and
proceeded, after affectionate but hasty greetings, to give his wife an
eloquent account of his doings, the battles he had fought, the Boers he
had killed, and the honours he had won.
When he at last paused for breath, his wife rose, and taking his hand
led him to the back, where a short curtain covered a recess. "I, too,
dear," she said proudly, "have not been idle."
And pulling back the curtain she displayed six cradles occupied by six
large baby dolls!
And that again recalls another, quite in the same line. One day a
gentleman walking down a street observed a little boy seated on a
doorstep. Going up to him, he said, "Well, my little chap, how is it you
are sitting outside on the doorstep, when I see through the window all
the other young folks inside playing games and having a good time? Why
aren't you inside joining in the fun?" "I guess, stranger, that I'm in
this game." replied the boy. "But how can you be, when you are out on
the doorstep, and the others are all inside?" "Oh, I'm in the show right
enough. You see, we're playing at being married. I'm the baby, and I'm
not born yet!"
The late Dr. Norman M'cLeod--the great Norman--rejoiced in telling a
story about two ragged children whom he found busy on the side of a
country road one day, working with some stiffened mud, which they had
carefully scraped together. "What's this you are making?" he asked. One
of the children replied that it was a kirk. "A kirk! Ay, and where's the
door?" "There it's." "And the pulpit?" "That's it." "And the minister?"
The little one hesitated, then replied, very innocently--"We hadna dirt
enough left to mak' a minister."
The minister, of course--and the weaker his character he should be the
more careful--must always approach children with caution if he hopes to
come out of the interview with his reputation unscathed. I have heard or
read of a member of the cloth--a supreme egoist--who was visiting at a
house when but the mother and her little girl--a mere child--were at
home. As the self-esteemed great man was holding the mother in
conversation, he noticed with pride that the child, who reposed on the
hearthrug with a school-slate tilted on her knee, was making furtive
glances up at his face, and returning her attention regularly to the
slate, on which she kept scrawling with a pencil. When at length she
stopped and looked serious, "Well, my dear," he exclaimed, "have you
been trying to draw my portrait?" She did not reply, "Come," he
continued, coaxingly, "you must let me see it." "Oh," interposed the
proud mother, "she's awfu' clever at the drawin'." This made the
minister still more eager to see the work, and he repeated his request
for an exposure; but the child clutched the slate only more tightly to
her breast and did not look up. "She's aye sae shy, ye ken," interceded
the mother, as she reached her hand to procure the work of art by main
force. It was then the little one found her tongue, and she
exclaimed--"Oh, it wasna very like him, and I just put a tail till't,
and ca'd it a doggie." The _denouement_ leaves nothing to be desired.
Dean Ramsay, to whom his country owes so much for the elucidation of its
characteristics, tells humorously of the elder of a kirk having found a
little boy and his sister playing marbles on Sunday, and put his reproof
not at all in judicious form by exclaiming--"Boy, do you know where
children go who play marbles on the Sabbath-day?" Not in judicious form,
truly, for the boy replied, "Ay, they gang doun to the field by the
water below the brig." "No," roared out the elder, "they go to hell, and
are burned." Worse than ever--for the elder--for the little fellow,
really shocked, now called to his sister, "Come awa', Jeanie, here's a
man swearin' awfu'."
"Among the lower orders in Scotland humour is found, occasionally, very
rich in mere children," observes the Dean, "and I recollect a remarkable
illustration of this early native humour occurring in a family in
Forfarshire, where I used in former days to be very intimate. A wretched
woman, who used to traverse the country as a beggar or tramp, left a
poor half-starved little girl by the road-side near the house of my
friends. Always ready to assist the unfortunate, they took charge of the
child, and as she grew a little older they began to give her some
education, and taught her to read. She soon made some progress in
reading the Bible, and the native odd humour of which we speak began
soon to show itself. On reading the passage which began 'Then David
rose,' etc., the child stopped and looked up knowingly to say, 'I ken
wha that was,' and being asked what she could mean, she confidently
said, 'That's David Rowse the pleuchman.' And again, reading the passage
where the words occur, 'He took Paul's girdle,' the child said, with
much confidence, 'I ken what he took that for;' and on being asked to
explain, replied at once, 'To bake his bannocks on.'"