M. Do you recollect one of these grave speeches?
H. Oh, yes, I can easily do that. The other day I was going to tell him something his sister had said; it was nothing very particular, but somehow I hoped it would have made him angry with her. All at once Thomas stopped me, and said, “A whisperer separateth chief friends;” and if you had but seen how grave he looked.
M. Open the Bible and you will find this grave speech as you call it, in the 17th chapter of Proverbs. My dear Henry, it was not Thomas but the word of God that stopped you.
H. Indeed, mamma, I did not know it was in the Bible. But Thomas is always so grave; he looks as if he meant to tell you every thing I say or do. As we came home from farmer Martin’s I got up behind a carriage, and the coachman did not find me out for a long while; but when Thomas overtook me, he said such a deal about its being wrong to get up behind a carriage without leave.
M. What did he say?
H. Oh, I hardly recollect all: he said it was unjust, for I did it without asking leave. I am sure you will say that it is nonsense to call such a trifle as that unjust.
M. I am quite of Thomas’s opinion; what would you have thought, if a person had put two or three sacks of corn behind the carriage?
H. That would have tired the horses and made them go slower, and the people would not have arrived so soon at their journey’s end.
M. Then to do so would have been unjust, would it not?
H. I understand what you mean, mamma; though I am not so heavy as a sack of corn, yet I see I was wrong.