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 pick
_your_ pocket"--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
Jesus _taken_, 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 was _for_, 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 the _pros_ and
_cons_, 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 the _Lawrence 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 well _bread_.'" 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 of _smile_. "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
quaere_, 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 brother _if 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 Voelker'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 the _good_
comes in," he replied. "It comes in right after the _a_," said the
little bepraised. Wasn't she smart?--or "just as cunnin' as she _could_
be?"
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. They _will be missed_,
if they are not _mastered_. 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 of _nightmare_." 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, _I_
tell _you_, 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 with _scrip_ from
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, "what
_are_ you 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-_here_ nor cash-_there_
for 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, or _conveying_, 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 Father _who 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 awfully _rested_.'"