How a Child’s Friendship was Won.
A man whose daily walk led him down a certain dingy street saw a tiny boy with grimy face and badly developed limbs playing with a banana skin in the gutter. The man nodded to him—the boy shrank away in terror. Next day the man nodded again. The boy had decided there was nothing to be afraid of, and spat at the man. Next day the boy only stared. The day after he shouted “Hi!” as the man went on. In time the little fellow smiled back at the greeting which he now began to expect. Finally the triumph was complete when the boy—a tiny chap—was waiting at the corner and seized the man’s fingers in his dirty little fist. It was a dismal street, but it became one of the very brightest spots in all that man’s walk through life.
CHAPTER IX
CHILDREN’S MEETINGS
In these days, when the teaching of any virtue necessitates a special Society, and when no Society is complete without its Children’s Branch, children’s meetings are matters of almost everyday occurrence.
To say that these meetings are for the most part successful would be scarcely accurate. They are too numerous, and speakers to whom children will listen are too few.
To Whom will Children Listen?
To whom, then, will they give a hearing? That is a difficult question, almost as difficult to answer as if it were asked “Who can whistle a tune?” At all events it is quite as difficult to tell people how to gain the attention of children as it is to tell them how to whistle a tune. If they can, they can; and if they can’t, it isn’t much use telling them. However, it is just possible that anyone who has looked through the pages of this little book may have been stirred to think about children, and to try to understand them. In that case a step has been taken on the road to being one of those lucky people to whom children will listen.
Children Know their Friends.
Small boys and girls, like dogs, know by intuition the people who are fond of them, and unless the would-be speaker belongs to this class he need not hope to get their attention. Grown-up people listen to someone whom they do not like on the chance of finding something to criticize or ridicule. Children simply do not listen at all.