And it is but the other day—only a week ago—I had an opportunity of seeing a similar case. A girl of eighteen months was overhauling her play-basket before a boy of seven. She was ready enough to show all her toys, but whatever he took into his hand, she would instantly reach after. Before two minutes were over, I found him playing the man of business, pretending to like what he did not, and to dislike what he most coveted. There were heaps of playthings strewed about over the floor. Among them were the remains of a little dog which had been sadly pulled to pieces, but which the boy took a decided fancy to, nevertheless. He kept his eye upon them, and after taking possession leaned over toward the little girl, and shook his head, and spoke in that peculiarly soothing voice, and with that coaxing manner, which are common to horse-dealers, and which children so well know how to counterfeit when they have a worthy object in view.
"Oh, the pretty teapot! Oh my! Mary want it," said he, turning it over and over, and carefully displaying the crooked nose, the warped handle, and the useless bottom, while he secured the dog.
That over, he tried his hand at a little Indian basket, talking all the time as fast as his tongue could run, in favor of the toys he had no relish for. A diplomatist in embryo, a chess-player, a merchant, a lawyer? What more can the best of them do? What more have they ever done?
I saw three children throwing sticks at a cow. She grew tired of her share in the game at last, and, holding down her head and shaking it, demanded a new deal. They cut and run. After getting to a place of comparative security, they stopped, and holding by the top of a board-fence, over which they had clambered, began to reconnoitre. Meanwhile another troop of children hove in sight, and, arming themselves with brick-bats, began to approach the same cow; whereupon two of the others called out from the fence,—
"You Joe! you better mind! that's our cow!"
The plea was admitted without a demurrer, and the cow was left to be tormented by the legal owners. Hadn't these boys the law on their side?
A youth once lived with me who owned a little dog. One day I caught the dog worrying what I supposed to be a rat, and the boy standing over him and encouraging him. It proved to be a toad; the poor creature escaped during my interference. Before a month had gone over, the dog showed symptoms of hydrophobia, and I shot him. Not long after this I found the boy at a pump trying to keep a tub full, which appeared to have no bottom. I inquired what he was doing, and it turned out that he was trying to drown a frog. I asked the reason: Because a toad had poisoned the poor little dog.
Here was a process of ratiocination worthy of any autocrat that ever breathed. Because A suffered soon after worrying B, therefore C shall be pumped to death. Precisely the case of Poland.
I know another little boy who once lost a favorite dog. About a week afterward the dog reappeared, and the boy was the happiest creature alive. But something happened a little out of the way, which caused further inquiry, when it turned out that the new dog was not the old one, though astonishingly like. The only difference I could perceive was a white spot under the neck. Well, what does our boy do? receive the stranger with thankfulness, and adopt him with joy, for his extraordinary resemblance to a lost favorite? No, indeed; but he gives him a terrible thumping, and turns him neck-and-heels out of doors on a cold, rainy night! As if the poor dog had been guilty of personating another! How perfectly of a piece with the behavior of grown people who have cheated themselves, and found it out. Woe to the innocent and the helpless who lie in their path! or sleep in their bosom, or inhabit among their household gods!
But children are not merely unjust, and cruel, and treacherous, even as men are. Like men, they are murderers, mischief-makers, devils, at times. I knew two boys, the older not more than four, who caught a hen, and, having pulled out her eyes with crooked pins, they let her go; after which, on seeing her stagger and tumble about, and perhaps afraid of discovery, they determined to cut off her head. One was to hold her, and the other to perform the operation; but for a long while they could not agree upon their respective shares in the performance. At last they hit upon a precious expedient. They laid her upon the steps, put a board over her body, upon which one of the two sat, while the other sawed off her head with a dull case-knife. Parents! Fathers! Mothers! What child of four years of age was ever capable of such an act, without a long course of preparation? for neglect is preparation. Both were murderers, and their parents were their teachers. If "the child is father of the man," what is to become of such children? If it be true that "just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined," how much have you to answer for? If "men are but children of a larger growth," watch your children forever, by day and by night! pray for them forever, by night and by day! and not as children, but as Men of a smaller growth,—as men with most of the evil passions, and with all the evil propensities, that go to make man terrible to his fellow-men, his countenance hateful, his approach a fiery pestilence, and his early death a blessing, even to his father and mother!