Buds and Blossoms; or, Stories for Real Children

BY A LADY.
LONDON: J. HATCHARD AND SON, 187, PICCADILLY. 1832.
LONDON: IBOTSON AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.
I have some little children who are fond of listening to me while I tell them stories; but I always find, that when they are very much pleased with one, they ask these questions: “Is it all true , mama? Is it about a real little boy and girl?” and when I am obliged to answer, “No, I do not think it is,” their countenances fall, and they seem as if half their pleasure and half their interest were gone. Now I cannot help fancying that other little boys and girls may have the same love for true stories that mine have; so I think I will write some and try. Would you then like to hear about some real children who are now alive, and at the moment you read of them, most likely either playing or learning their lessons, either good or naughty, just as they are going to be described to you? You would.—Well then, Emily, Edwin, and Charles, are my children, and I will make you know them as well as if they were your own playfellows; and who can tell but you may some time or other chance to see them, and to play with them in reality? How droll it would be to meet them, and to find out that they were the very children you had been reading about, and how surprised they would be to see that you knew all that had ever happened to them. Why, they would think that you must be little fairies, and would be half afraid to trust themselves with you for fear that you should play off some elfish trick upon them.
“Mama,” said Emily to me the other day, “I like to hear you tell Charles about God, and to see him listen as if he wanted to understand all you say, so very, very much. Do tell me how you first began to teach me, and whether I seemed to love to be taught as much as Charlie does. I suppose you began when I was a very little girl, and now I am nearly six years old; so of course I cannot remember such a long time ago.”
“I think, dear Emily, the first time I told you any thing about God was when you were a little more than two years old. I had been drawing different things to amuse you. After the house, and the tree, and the cow, which you so often hear little Charlie beg for, you asked me to draw the sun, and the moon, and the stars; then, lifting up your little face, you said, ‘But, mama, who could reach up and draw those pretty great pictures of the sun and moon that Emmie sees in the sky?’”