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; but _qui 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't _approve_ of 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 it _flop_!"
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 forgot _to 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?"
Mamma _dried up_--just as the boy had _slopped 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 be _so_ tired; 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 spelled _pigeon_ with _Q. U. A. I. L._,
and pronounced it _fidget_, 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 their _porridge_." 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 little _hoop-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 had _done 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 said _who_, instead of _whom_; 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 are _ours_."
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'm _a 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, "I _know_ I'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 trapeze performances to quite a gathering of wee folks.
They had fitted up a trapeze, 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."
No. 139. _The Tables turned._--"Are you talking to me, sir?" said a
respectable man to a little scapegrace, who had been holding what he
called an argument with his papa; "I'm your father, sir. Remember that,
sir!"
"Well, who's to blame for that, I should like to know--'taint me," said
the boy.
No. 140. _Language._--A bright, clear-eyed little thing of three
summers, after listening demurely to a chapter of the Old Testament,
which her father read to the family aloud one pleasant Sabbath, looked
up with the air of one who felt called upon to say something, in the
dead silence that followed, and whispered, "Papa, ain't God a funny
fellow?" What knew that child of irreverence? What she meant to say was
that she had been delighted.
No. 141. _A new Paraphrase._--A father, who always insisted upon his
children giving their version of what they heard, in their own language,
to show that they understood it, asked Charlie to repeat the text which
they had been listening to.
Charlie hesitated awhile, and then, as if it had come to him all at
once, broke out with, "What are you loafing round here for, doin'
nothing? Go into my barn-yard, and go to work, and I'll make it all
right with you."
The text was, "Why stand ye here all the day idle? Go into the vineyard
and work, and whatsoever is right, I will pay thee." Who will venture to
say that the poor child did not understand the meaning?
No. 142. _The Darlings._--"Mamma!" shouted Lollipop, "make Bobby 'have
himself; every time I hit him with the whap-stick he hollars out."
No. 143. Another child was once heard calling out from the head of the
stairs to her mamma, that nurse "wouldn't _quiet_ her."
No. 144. _Tit for Tat._--Another wee thing, after complaining of her
teacher, said, with a tap of her little foot, and a something between a
sob and a whimper, she did "wish Miss Maria would go to school to
herself awhile, that she might see how she liked it."
No. 145. _A fair Inference._--A little boy and girl had been repeatedly
cautioned not to take the nest-egg, when foraging in the hay-mow, and
along by the fences; but one evening, little Sis found her way to the
nest, rather in advance of Bubby, and snatching the egg, off she started
for the house. Her brother followed, screaming, "Mother! mother! Susy's
ben and got the egg the old hen measures by!"
No. 146. _Another._--A little bit of a thing who had just got back from
a party, was asked by her mamma how she had enjoyed herself. "O mamma!"
said she, "I'm so full of happiness--I couldn't be no happier, without I
was bigger." So reasoned Samuel Johnson. The quart pot and the pint may
both be full; but the quart holds most.
No. 147. _From Over-Sea._--A little five-year-old Parisian went to
church with his mamma. Both began praying. "Mamma," whispered the little
fellow, "I've said my prayer." "Say it over again, my dear." The child
obeys, and whispers, "I have said it again, mamma," and gets the same
answer; and so for the third time, the mother not liking to be hurried
in her devotions. "But, mamma, I have said it over three times." "Say
it again, my dear." "But, mamma--won't it be tedious for the good God to
listen all the time to the same prayer? What if I say over the fable
I've just learnt at school?"
No. 148. _Definition of Faith._--A child was asked, "What is faith?"
"Doing God's will and asking no questions," was her reply.
_Another fair Inference._--"Lottie, dear," said a little visitor to her
playfellow of three, "what makes our Kitty so cross?" "'Cause she's
tuttin' her teef, I spec."
No. 149. _And yet another._--A little thing in a sabbath-school was
asked by her teacher "if she always said her prayers night and morning."
"No, Miss, I don't." "Why, Mary! Are you not afraid to go to sleep in
the dark, without asking God to take care of you, and watch over you
till morning?" "No, Miss, I ain't--'cause I sleep in the middle."
No. 150. _Did his Best._--A little chap had a dirty face, and his
teacher told him to go and wash it. He went away, and after a few
minutes came back, with the lower part of his countenance tolerably
clean, while the upper part was dirty and wet.
"Johnny," said the teacher, "why didn't you wash your face?"
"I did wash it, sir," said Johnny.
"You didn't wipe it all over, then?"
"I did wipe it, as high up as my shirt would go."
And this reminds me of a little boy who had been told never to go into
the water without leave. One day he came home heated and tired, with his
shirt on wrong side out. "You've been in a-swimming, Josie," said his
mother. "No, mamma." "How came your shirt turned inside out, then?"
"Wal," said Josie, after a moment's hesitation, "I rather guess it was
when I got over that high fence, and turned a somerset, head first."