"Let him—of course," said Sam stoutly. "He'd feel uncomfortably damp and chilly after a while."
"Yes; and have the croup or pneumonia that same night."
"You're hopelessly old-fashioned, Betty," he laughed; "you shouldn't introduce the croup or pneumonia idea into the infant consciousness. But seriously, my dear, I believe I'm right. If you don't teach the children to recognise the relation between cause and effect now—so that it becomes second nature to them, how are they going to understand the subject when they're put up against it later? You'll find the mother bird and the mother bear, and, in fact, all the animal creation carefully instilling the idea of cause and effect into their offspring from the very beginning; while human parents are as constantly protecting their children from the effects of the causes which the children ignorantly set in motion. In other words we persist in undoing the work of old 'Mother Be-done-by-as-you-did.' It's a blunder, in my opinion. But of course, I'm a mere man and my ideas are not entitled to much consideration."
Elizabeth gazed at her husband with open admiration. "Of course they are entitled to consideration," she said decidedly. "And I believe what you have said—with reservations. Suppose Baby Dick, for example, should lean out of the window too far—a second-story window, I mean—and I should see him doing it and feel pretty certain he was going to pitch out head first and cripple himself for life. Do you think I ought to stand still and let the law of gravitation teach him not to do it a second time?"
Sam Brewster laid down his pipe and gazed steadfastly at his wife. She was looking extremely young and bewitchingly pretty as she leaned toward him, her cheeks pink, her brown eyes glowing with earnestness in which he thought he detected a spark of her old girlish mischief.
"'And still the wonder grew,'" he quoted solemnly, "'that one small head could carry all she knew!'"
"Please answer me, Sam," she insisted.
"Well, of course you've got me. You'd have to haul in the young person by the heels, and——"
"And what, exactly, if you please?"
"You might illustrate—with some fragile, concrete object, like an egg—as to what would happen if he fell out," said Sam, with exceeding mildness, "and——"