Didn't either one of them know it, you see.
The Father Knew Best
Dr. Arnot, one of the greatest Scotch divines, was in this country before he died. His mother died when he was a little boy only three weeks old, and there was a large family of Arnots. I suppose they missed the tenderness and love of the mother. They got the impression that their father was very stern and rigid, and that he had a great many laws and rules.
One rule was, that the children should never climb trees. When the neighbors found out that the Arnot children could not climb trees, they began to tell them about the wonderful things they could see from the tops of the trees. Well, tell a boy of twelve years that he mustn't climb a tree, and he will get up that tree some way. And so the Arnot children were all the time teasing their father to let them climb the tree; but the old sire said:
"No."
One day he was busy reading his paper, and the boys said:
"Father is reading his paper. Let's slip down into the lot and climb a tree."
One of the little fellows stood on the top of the fence to see that father did not catch them. When his brother got up on the first branch, he said:
"What do you see?"
"Why! I don't see anything."