“All grown-up people seem to know everything,” she summarized.
There are times when I doubt if children are as simple as they look. If it be sheer stupidity that prompts them to make remarks of this character, one should pity them, and seek to improve them. But if it be not stupidity? well then, one should still seek to improve them, but by a different method.
The other morning I overheard the nurse talking to this particular specimen. The woman is a most worthy creature, and she was imparting to the child some really sound advice. She was in the middle of an unexceptional exhortation concerning the virtue of silence, when Dorothea interrupted her with—
“Oh, do be quiet, Nurse. I never get a moment’s peace from your chatter.”
Such an interruption discourages a woman who is trying to do her duty.
Last Tuesday evening she was unhappy. Myself, I think that rhubarb should never be eaten before April, and then never with lemonade. Her mother read her a homily upon the subject of pain. It was impressed upon her that we must be patient, that we must put up with the trouble that God sends us. Dorothea would descend to details, as children will.
“Must we put up with the cod-liver oil that God sends us?”
“Yes, decidedly.”
“And with the nurses that God sends us?”
“Certainly; and be thankful that you’ve got them, some little girls haven’t any nurse. And don’t talk so much.”