Chapter III: Part 3

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_.'"

No. 89. _A Specimen of Childish Faith, which, if not dwarfed nor blighted, would be enough--almost--to move Mountains, after getting its growth._--Two little girls, one nine and the other eleven, on getting up one morning, had a trial to see which would get dressed first. Little Sue was the winner; and turning to her sister, with the triumphant air of a victor at the Olympian games, she said, "I knew I should beat you, Sissy; for I asked God to help me, _and I knew He would_."

No. 90. A fine-looking, saucy, high-spirited girl of ten, bought of a fashionable shoe-maker a pair of warranted boots. They broke out with one day's wear. She carried them back to him. After turning them over, inside and out, awhile, he said, "They were not taken in quite enough, I see." "No," she replied, "but I was."

No. 91. A promising little chap having heard it stated confidentially that a neighbor was married, and that she had a little boy and girl, stowed the fact away for future use; and not long after reproduced it in a large company of ladies and gentlemen, after this fashion: "Miss M----, I tink our tortus-shell tat's ben dittin married--she's dut tittens." But tortoise-shell cats don't have kittens--at least, not of themselves, if by proxy; 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."

No. 151. _A new Version._--A boy in our District School was reading a lesson from the Bible in that deliberate fashion so usual with chaps of six, and when he came to the passage, "Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from guile," he drawled out, with a decided emphasis, "Keep--thy--tongue from evil; and thy lips from--from--_girls_." Of course, there followed an explosion. "Job was an oyster-man; and the Lord, he shot him with four balls," if we may believe a new reading of what was intended for Scripture: "Somebody was an _austere_ man; and the Lord smote him with sore boils."

No. 152. _Children and Fools are said to speak the Truth._--"Be you good?" said a little chap to Miss Bella M----, of the sabbath-school here.

"O no!" was the becoming reply.

"You ain't! well I knew you wasn't pretty, but I always thought you was good."

No. 153. The following sweet lines are too good for abridgment, or paraphrase. I know not where they originated; nor who was the author. Was there ever anything more childlike and beautiful than "Mamma, God knows all the rest?"--or ever lines worthier of the text?

THE UNFINISHED PRAYER.

"Now I lay"--repeat it, darling;
'Lay me,' lisped the tiny lips
Of my daughter, kneeling, bending
O'er her folded finger-tips.

"Down to sleep"--'To sleep,' she murmured,
And the curly head dropped low;
"I pray the Lord"--I gently added,
You can say it all, I know.

"'Pray the Lord'--the word came faintly,
Fainter still--'My soul to keep;'
Then the tired head fairly nodded,
And the child was fast asleep.

"But the dewy eyes half opened
When I clasped her to my breast,
And the dear voice softly whispered,
'Mamma, God knows all the rest.'"

No. 154. _Natural Language._--A youngster of only two and a half, who had often heard complaints in the family about pegs hurting the feet, stole up to his mother one day, with his fingers in his mouth, and said, "Mamma! O mamma! Me dut pegs tummin in my mouf, and dey hurts Billy." On further examination, he was found to be cutting no less than three little teeth.

No. 155. _An embryo Theologian._--A little boy, disputing one day with his elder sister upon some Bible question, sung out, "I tell ye, it's true! for Ma says so; an' if Ma says so, it is so, if it ain't so." That boy's career is evident enough. Submission to authority, and sheer dogmatism, will be likely to overtop the pretensions of private judgment.

No. 156. _Budding Subterfuges._--A little girl, belonging to Hartford, Connecticut, was called to account one day by her mother for killing flies. The amusement had become a serious occupation, and her dexterity in catching them was only to be matched by her astonishing aptitude in killing them. Her mother had begun to be frightened. "Mary, my love," said she, "don't you know that God loves the little flies?"

Mary stood for a few moments, lost in thought, her beautiful countenance growing sadder and sadder, as if her conscience had begun to testify against her in a whisper, just as poor Herod's might have done, after the slaughter of _his_ innocents. At last, having apparently settled the question with herself, she stole up to the nearest window where a big blue-bottle was blundering and bumping about, and buzzing at a fearful rate. After watching it for several minutes, with a piteous expression, as if her heart were too full for speech, she began whispering just loud enough to be heard by her mother, "Do ee fy know dat Dod loves oo? Duz oo love Dod?"--stretching out her little hand as if to soothe its evident terror. "Duz oo? Duz oo want to zee Dod?--well," in a tone of the tenderest commiseration, putting her finger on the fly, and crushing it softly against the glass--"Well--oo sal!"

No. 157. _A young Nero._--And this reminds me of something told me by General Fessenden, the father of all the general Fessendens we know of. "When I was a little fellow," said he, "not more than so high, the Old Adam within me (what we Phrenologists call Destructiveness, he meant) led me to pull off the wings of flies, and to impale them on pins, and set them buzzing at the end of a hair. My father, in passing one day, stopped long enough to catch me in the act. '_Nero!_' said he, and passed on. 'Well,' said I to myself, 'what did he mean by that? _Nero--Nero_--I'll ask somebody.' I did so--found out who Nero was, and from that day to this, have never tormented any of God's creatures! And yet, he was a lawyer, in large practice--and I believed him--that is, I believed him, till I knew better."