Chicago was greatly disturbed, not long ago, by a little incident worth
remembering. Somebody's three-year-old pet had been often amused at home
with pretty good imitations of a bear, growling over his prey. While the
congregation were singing, one of those predetermined, zealous
worshippers, to be found everywhere, who cannot be persuaded to withhold
their contributions in church, though they never dream of pitching a
tune anywhere else, began a low, growling accompaniment, within two or
three pews of the child, without regard for time or tune, though
evidently to his own satisfaction, under an idea that he was singing
base--instead of basely. The little one looked surprised, and turning
suddenly to mamma, asked, in a voice loud enough to be heard by the
whole congregation, just as a lull occurred in the stanza, "O mamma!
mamma! who's that _a-bearin'_?"
Will nobody take the hint? Let us have congregational singing by all
means, instead of oratorios and operas, for church music--but no
menagerie music, if _you_ please.
No. 199. _A Plea in Bar._--"Come up here, you young reprobate, and take
a sound spanking," said the teacher, out of all patience with a
mischievous, quick-witted boy.
"You ain't got no right to spank me, and the copy you've set for me says
so."
"Saucebox! Let me hear you read that copy; read it aloud, so that
everybody can hear you."
Whereupon the boy reads, like a trumpet, "'Let all the ends thou aimest
at be thy country's!'"
"Go to your seat, you young scapegrace."
And he went.
No. 200. _Foresight._--"Two cocoa-nuts for ten cents! hurrah!" shouted a
little shaver to his playfellow across the street; "that'll make me
sick to-morrow, and I shan't have to go to school--hurrah!"
No. 201. _I wouldn't, would you?_--A three-year-old youngster saw a
drunken fellow staggering through a crowded thoroughfare. "Mother," said
he, "did God make that man?" "Yes, my dear." "Well," after considering a
moment, "maybe He did, but I wouldn't have done it."
No. 202. _A drop of Gold._--"Mother," said a little poet of four
summers, "just hear the trees makin' music, for the leaves to dance by."
No. 203. _Another!_--A little fellow was eating bread and milk, when he
turned round to his mother and exclaimed, "O mother! I'm full of glory!
There was a lot o' sunshine in my spoon, and I swallowed it!"
No. 204. _Suggestive._--"She said she wouldn't let me go to her
funeral, grandma; but you'll let me go to yours, grandma, won't
you--there's a dear."
No. 205. _Logical Inference._--A little boy of our neighborhood, with an
eye as clear as a kitten's, had a dog named Caper. Dining with his
grandmother not long ago, when they had boiled mutton, his attention was
attracted by something he saw in the butter-boat. "What's them, gam'ma?"
said he. "Capers, my dear." He looked puzzled--grew thoughtful--and
watched the plates awhile, and then, having made up his mind, he came
out with, "Please, gam'ma, I want some more o' them little dogs." Of
course he had them.
No. 206. _Classification._--"Who makes the laws of our government?"
asked a committee-man of the class under review--a class of
Lilliputians. "Congress." "And how is Congress divided?" A dead
silence. At last a dear little thing, not more than so high, with a
wonderful memory, threw up her hand, thereby signifying that she was
ready to answer it. "Well," said the teacher, "what say you, Sallie? How
are they divided?" "Into civilized, half-civilized, and savage," was the
triumphant reply. If it be true, that the greater the truth the greater
the libel, might not Miss Sallie be indicted? Congressional miscreants
are getting so plentiful, just now, that children should be
cautioned--or tongue-tied.
No. 207. _Funny._--"There now!" said a little bit of a thing, while
rummaging a drawer in a bureau, and turning the contents all
topsy-turvy, of course; "there now! gran'pa has gone to heaven without
his spectacles. Won't you take 'em with you, gramma, when you go?"
No. 208. _A Natural Bonesetter._--A little fellow pitched head foremost
from the top of a coal-bin, and put his shoulder out. A surgeon was sent
for "about the quickest." No sooner had the messenger turned his back,
than the boy went to work anew, notwithstanding the pain, and while
climbing over the back of a chair, as if it were a ladder, he got
another tumble, which frightened his poor mother so that she hadn't
strength enough to scream. But lo! up jumped the young scapegrace, and
began surveying his arm, and shouting, "It's all right, mother! it's all
right!" And so it proved. The dislocation had been reduced with a snap,
the joint was back in its place, and the young gentleman was ready for
another demonstration.
No. 209. _No you don't!_--Freddy, between three and four, and Willie,
about five, were both extravagantly fond of milk, and always had a mug
of the best, to top off with, at supper; but, being in the country the
other day, they happened, for the first time in their lives, to see a
girl milking. "There now, Willie," said the youngest, "you see that,
don't you? I don't want any more milk after the cow's had it," averting
his eyes from the operation as he spoke, with an expression of downright
loathing. At supper, when their little mugs of milk were got ready for
them, both refused to touch them. On being questioned, Freddy contented
himself with saying that, for his part, he didn't want any milk after
the cows had it--and there he stopped, as if unwilling to go farther.
But Willie came out plump, with an account of the discovery made in the
morning.
Their mother saw that she had no time to lose; otherwise an
unconquerable repugnance might be associated with their fondness for a
wholesome diet, and so she told them how milk was made: that they did
not have it from the cows at second-hand, but that when cows ate grass,
and clean vegetables, and fruit, they were all changed into milk by a
wonderful chemical process, like that which turns all our food to
nourishment, giving us flesh and blood, bones and muscle, according to
our growth. Willie seemed satisfied with the explanation, and went back
to the little mug; but Freddy was not to be persuaded.
After supper Willie took his brother aside into a corner, and was
overheard expostulating with him, and saying, "It's all right now,
Freddy, and you can go on drinking your milk, just as you always have.
The cow eats grass, and that's what makes it. Now if the cow didn't eat
the grass, you'd have to, you see. That's what the cow's for."
Freddy went back to his milk without another word, as being, at the
worst, somewhat more agreeable than eating grass.
No. 210. _Little Pitchers have Big Ears._--A child, the son of a
minister, sat on the floor playing with his blocks one afternoon, when
two or three female parishioners dropped in for a dish of chat with
mamma. The conversation, after a few moments, turned, very naturally, it
may be supposed, on a floating scandal of the day. They had entirely
forgotten the child; but all at once recollected themselves, and came to
a sudden stop, and, looking at each other, tried to recall what had been
said.
There sat the little imp, busy with his playthings, and, as it appeared
upon further inquiry, after the visitors had gone, without having
understood a syllable of what had been said; but the lively chattering
stopped so suddenly, he looked up, and then, turning over and rolling
on the floor, as if unable to restrain himself, he sung out, "Go on! go
right on! that's jess sech as I like to hear, every day!"
No. 211. _A Hint for the Doctor._--A little four-year-old midget being
in a bad way, was called upon to take a very nauseous medicine, and was
sitting in a high chair, in her night-dress, when the cup was offered
her. She shook her head with a piteous look, and then said, "No no--me
tan't tate it so; but me'll tate it with soogar," and sent off the nurse
for a lump. Whereupon her little brother rushed up to her, shouting,
"Take it, Sallie! take it, while she's gone, Sallie, and cheat her! and
then hide, Sallie--that's the way I do." And thereupon Miss Sallie
gulped down the abominable mixture to the last dregs, without winking,
only saying, "It choke Sallie," and then scrabbling down from the high
chair, and scuttling away under the bed, with an occasional chuckle, and
popping out her little curly head, her eyes dancing with joy, while
waiting for the nurse to get back. When she appeared, she was welcomed
with a shout of triumph by the youthful conspirators, Miss Sallie never
dreaming for a moment that she had been bamboozled.
No. 212. _The best of Reasons._--"Breakfasting with a physician the
other day," says somebody, whose name does not appear in the record,
"little Julia began to talk very earnestly, at the first pause in the
conversation. Her father checked her, somewhat sharply, saying, 'Why is
it that you always talk so much?' ''Tause I've dot somesin to say,' was
the reply. The solemn papa was obliged to look another way, while the
guests laughed outright."
No. 213. _Discouraging._--A little boy named Knight, of the
mission-school at New-London, was told by the teachers, one and all,
that if he was good, he would go to heaven. The little fellow accepted
the situation, and evidently did his best; but the next time he appeared
in his place, he seemed downhearted. On being questioned by his teacher
about the cause, and asked if he had been a good boy, he replied,
"Yes--I've tried ever so hard to be good; but it's no use. The boys tell
me I can't go to heaven, if I am ever so good." "And why not, pray?"
"Because they tell me the Bible says there'll be no _Knight_ there."
No. 214. _How to fix it._--Master Willie, a very good boy, as boys go,
happened to begin going to school, just when the first snow fell, and a
pretty new sled, with scarlet runners, had become his property. About
school-time, therefore, he began to have _such_ terrible aches. But
these would soon pass off, and then he would go off to slide. One
morning he came to his mamma with a _drefful_ headache--and school had
to be given up. "Very well, my dear," said she; "if you have such a
terrible headache, you can stay at home this beautiful morning; but
remember, you mustn't ask leave to go and slide, for I shall not
consent--I tell you now." "Yes, mamma." But within the next half hour
Willie came to her, saying his drefful headache was all gone, and would
she let him go just this once. "No, Willie--you know what I said--you
wouldn't have me tell a lie, would you?"
Willie turned away somewhat discouraged; but after a few moments his
little face brightened up, as with inward sunshine, and he stole up to
his mother's knee, and whispered,--"No, mother! No, no! I don't want you
to tell a lie; but couldn't you _just fix it_, you see, as you do when
you put me to bed, and say you are not going out, and then go?"
No. 215. _Excuse my Candor._--"What a fine head your little boy has!"
said a propitiatory friend--a phrenologist, perhaps--to a doating
father. "Ay, ay," said the delighted papa; "ay, ay, he's a chip of the
old block, ain't you, sonny?" "I guess so," said the boy, "for teacher
says I'm a little blockhead."
No. 216. _One of the Upper Ten._--"Ma," said a little moppet, "if I
should die and go to heaven, would I wear my moire antique?" "No,
darling, we cannot suppose we shall carry the fashions of this world
into the next." "Then, Ma, how would the little angels know I belonged
to the best society?"
No. 217. _Catching the Idea._--A little chap, on his return from church,
one day, where he heard an organ for the first time in his life, said
to his mother, "O, mammy, how I do wish you had been at church to-day,
to see the fun. There was a man there pumping music out of an old
cupboard."
No. 218. _Rather embarrassing._--A young lady--all women are ladies, you
know--wishing to impress upon her class in the sabbath-school the
terrible effect of Nebuchadnezzar's punishment, assured them that for
seven long years he ate grass _like a cow_. Up jumped a little boy with,
"Please, ma'am, did he give milk?" It is said the answer was not
forthcoming.
No. 219. _Total Depravity again._--"O sister! sister!" said little
Mattie, "if you would only let me swear once--only just once!" her heart
being too full for utterance.
No. 220. _A timely Suggestion._--Mamma was telling Master Freddy about
the sacrifice, or intended sacrifice, of Isaac, and explaining the
illustration which appeared in the old family Bible. There lay the boy,
bound hand and foot, on the altar, with the faggots heaped about him,
and the great sacrificial knife just ready to descend, and almost
touching the nose of the ram. She was explaining, to the best of her
knowledge and belief, the necessity of the sacrifice, and the
providential appearance of the substitute, when Freddy, whose feelings
had been worked up to concert pitch, exclaimed, "Sheepy, sheepy! why
don't you grab the knife, and run?"
No. 221. _Tenderness of Conscience._--"Dad--I say, dad--Nathan swored
last first-day, I heard him," said the little son of Master Blair, a
Scotch Quaker, I once knew. "Ah--an' what deed he say, mon?" "He said
Old Scratch, an' I heard him."
No. 222. _Beautiful--exceedingly!_--A little one was talking about
home. "And where is your home, dear?" said a listener. Looking up into
his mother's face with loving eyes, he whispered, "_Where mother is._"
No. 223. _An embryo Metaphysician._--"What are you going to see,
Sherwood?"
"Nothing, gran'pa."
"Nothing, my boy--how can you see nothing?"
"Easy enough, gran'pa."
"Where would you look for it?"
"Down a well, gran'pa."
"Isn't there something burning here?" said the mother of this boy one
day, on coming into the room where he was at play, and sniffing as she
spoke.
"Yes, mamma," sniffing in reply.
"Bless me--what is it?"
"Coal, mamma."
No. 224. _Influence of Example._--The little son of a friend in the
army, had learned to curse heartily, whenever anything disturbed him;
his father, of whom he had caught the trick, was ordered off, not long
ago, to a distant part of the country. Being separated from his boy, and
having had time for reflection, perhaps, he wrote home to his wife that
he was sorry to hear how little Joe still continued to curse and swear.
"Who told him?" said the boy. "He says a little bird told him," was the
mother's reply. "D--n that bird!" exclaimed the little scapegrace. He
was only six. While yet a baby, but just able to make himself
understood, an Irish girl came rushing in to the mother one day, saying,
"O ma'am! he keeps a-sayin' Jesus Christ, in the barn!"
No. 225. _Retribution._--"Tell you what 'tis, I won't pray for you when
I say my prayers, Willie," said a little thing to her playfellow in the
next house; "and Jesus won't bless you, _and_"--after a little
hesitation--"_and_--He shan't redeem you, neither!"
No. 226. _A young Poet._--A little four-year-old, laboring to impress a
sister with the prodigious quantity of something he had promised to give
her, said, "You just turn the sky over and I'll fill it
full--chock-full."
No. 227. _Literalness._--"_I_ know!" said a little boy to whom his
mother was reading that passage where the Lord is said to be walking in
the garden in the cool of the day; "I know! Just as papa does, with his
hands behind him, and an old coat on."
No. 228. _Letting the delicious Secret out._--Soon after his mother's
second marriage, a little shaver reached out his hand for another piece
of sponge-cake. Step-father shakes his head, and says _No_, after a
fashion that seems to admit of no appeal. "Well," says the boy, "I
don't care--only we're sorry we ever married you;" and then, as if
concentrating all the bitterness he felt, in a withering outburst, he
added, "And mother says so too!"
No. 229. _Their Notions of another World._--"Well then," said a little
girl, throwing down her book, "I don't want to die and go to heaven that
way; but if God would just let down a big basket, and draw me up with a
rope, I do think I should like it."
No. 230. Another little girl, after being made to understand what a
_post mortem_ examination was, declared that she would never consent to
be so dealt with, after death.
"What! when it would be such a help to the living, my dear?"
"Fiddle-de-dee! how would I look going to heaven all cut to pieces?"
No. 231. _Another._--Lottie, lying sick with a fever, having lost a dear
little cousin not long before, was unwilling to take her medicine, till
she was promised a pair of ear-rings. By and by, when she was believed
to be sound asleep, her mother was suddenly startled by a burst of loud
laughter. Being asked what was the matter, Lottie said, "O, it tickles
me so to think how cousin Hiram _will_ laugh, when he sees me come
trottin' into heaven with my new ear-rings!"
No. 232. _A Justification._--"Golly!--Gosh!--Gracious!" shouted a funny
little chap, at something he saw.
"Why, Bobby," said his mother, "where _did_ you pick up such words?"
"O, I've heard _you_ say Gracious, mamma, and the golly-gosh I just made
up myself," was the reply.
One day this dear mother, who had expostulated and pleaded with him till
she had no patience left, said she could bear with him no longer; she
wouldn't have a little boy round her that used such language; and so she
would have to put him away, and try to find another little son. In the
bitterness and desolation of his heart, Master Bobby went out into the
yard, and sat down on the grass to have a good cry by himself; whereupon
a little bantam rooster, not understanding the case, flew up on the
fence, and fell a-crowing like all possessed. "Shut up, darn you!"
blubbered Bobby, through his big dropping tears; "I've trouble enough on
my mind, without you!" He had just promised never to use that, nor any
other naughty word again, while he breathed the breath of life.
And for a time he kept his promise. But one day, just when they began to
feel greatly encouraged, he burst into the room with, "Oh, mother! what
do you think? I was coming through the field just now, and a horse was
tied there--the wickedest horse ever you _did_ see; an' he jist stood
still there, and kept sayin' 'By golly!' and 'By gosh!' and 'Dod darn
you!' and everything else he could think of. If you'd a been there,
you'd a-whipped him, oh, ever so hard, mamma! wouldn't you? And so would
I, if I'd had a whip." His mind was relieved.
No. 233. _Fishing and Mousing._--"Some years ago," says the New England
correspondent of--I forget what paper, "my cousin kept a district
school. Among her scholars was a little fellow of perhaps four years of
age, but too young to speak plainly. One day, when all the others were
hard at work, this youngster got hold of a pin and a string. The pin he
bent into the shape of a fish-hook, baiting it with a morsel of cheese.
He had seen a mouse come up through a hole in the corner of the hearth,
not long before, and went to work 'bobbing for whales.' On being asked
what he was at, he answered, 'Fishin' for a mousie.' This being rather
out of the usual course of study, the teacher, by way of punishment,
ordered him to stay where he was, and keep bobbing, till further orders.
After a while, there was a commotion; the mouse, it seemed, had
swallowed the cheese, hook and all, and the next moment Master Jerry,
giving a sudden jerk, sprang into the middle of the room, and swinging
the mouse round his head, shouted, 'I've dut 'im! I thware I've dut
'im!'"
No. 234. _Sunday-school Conundrums._--A smart little chap, with a wicked
eye, on being asked what was the chief end of man, replied, "The end
what's got the head on."
No. 235. _Inferential._--"Oh, mamma! mamma!" shouted a little shaver, as
he saw the sun going down, all red, like the opening to a furnace-fire,
"see how hot the sky is over there! Santa Claus is bakin', I guess."
Another of these natural philosophers, in petticoats, on hearing a man
dump coal into the bin with a terrible rumbling, shouted, "Oh, mother!
now I know what makes thunder. It is God puttin' coal on."
No. 236. _Coming to the Point._--"Tilly, my love," said a young mother
to a daughter in her fourth summer, "what would you do without your
mother?"
"I should put on every day just such a dress as I wanted to," said
Tilly, coquetting with her little fan.
No. 237. _Second Thoughts._--"O papa, is it wrong to change your mind?"
"Well, no, my boy--that depends upon circumstances; but why do you ask?"
"You know I wanted to be a doctor, papa," said the little five-year-old.
"O yes, I remember; and what then?" "Well, if you please, papa, I'd
rather be a candy-store."
No. 238. _Special Pleading._--"A friend at Lewiston," says one of our
newspapers, "told his little Josey, about six years of age, not to go
out of the gate again without leave. Soon after, papa missed him from
the back-yard, and saw him a long way off, tumbling about on the
sidewalk. He went after him, and taking him by the hand, leading him
toward the house, and considering the question of punishment for such
disobedience, he asked him why he left the yard, when he had been told
not to do so. 'Well, you see, papa, you told me not to go out o' the
gate; but you didn't tell me not to climb over the fence.'" Demurrer
sustained.--Plea adjudged good, and no _respondeas ouster_ allowed.
No. 239. _And why not?_--"Lottie," said a little visitor, "what makes
your Kitty so cross?" "Oh, tause she's tuttin' her teef, I 'spec."
No. 240. _Vagabondizing._--Two Illinois chaps, one twelve, and the other
only eight, left their homes not long ago to see the world, or seek
their fortunes, without money or friends, and journeyed away off into
Iowa, three hundred miles or so. The father of one, after snuffing about
for two or three days, got upon their track, and followed them to
Rock-Grove, Iowa, where he found them pretty well used up, though far
from being sick of their bargain. They had no explanations to give--no
excuses to offer--but, so far as could be discovered, had no reason for
leaving their homes, or running away; and they had actually travelled
the whole distance, on railroads and stages, without money and without
price.
No. 241. _Strange--if true._--"Harry! you shouldn't throw away nice
bread like that; you may want it yourself before you die." "Well,
mother, and if I should, would I stand any better chance of getting it
then, if I should eat it now?"
No. 242. _Am I dead, Papa?_--Many a child has propounded that same
question, with all seriousness, after a narrow escape. The first words
of a little boy who had just been fished up at New London lately,
were--"_Be I dead, though?_"
No. 243. _Enlisted for the War._--A little three-year-old, whose father,
a clergyman, had presented him with a military cap, all "fuss and
feathers," insisted on wearing it everywhere, and at all times, marching
through all the rooms, to music of his own, hour after hour, and day
after day, until his mother found it worth her while to remind him that
soldiers didn't train on the Sabbath. Whereupon, our young gentleman
started off up stairs, left foot first, with a new tune, compounded of
Hail-Columbia and Yankee-Doodle, Mother-Goose and Bobbylink, saying, as
he held on his way,--"_But I'm a soldier of the Lord, mamma._"
No. 244. _Repeating the Colic._--The rector of an Episcopal Church in
Albany, who had taken the greatest pains with his sabbath-school, and
prided himself not a little on the proficiency of his scholars, called
upon them one day, after a whole week of preparation, to repeat the
_Collect_. A dead silence: then for a show of hands; not a hand was
lifted; but, on casting his eyes over the little community, he saw a
sign of encouragement. "Ah, ha!" said he, "I see a little hand raised in
Miss Annie's class. Please repeat the _Collect_, my dear." The poor
thing seemed bewildered. "If you know the Collect, Fanny," said the
teacher, "why don't you repeat it?" The child blushed and stammered; but
on being further questioned, said, "I thought he wanted all that had the
_colic_ to hold up their hands; and I had it t'other night, and father
had to stay up, and take care of me." To _repeat_ her _colic_ would be
no joke to her, whatever it might be to others, and she was probably
excused.