No. 39. Little Tommy.—"I say, ma, is it true that we are made out of the dust?"
Ma.—"Yes, Tommy; so we are told."
Tommy.—"I'll be hanged if I can believe it; 'cause you see, if we was, when we sweat, wouldn't we be muddy?"
That boy was a Transcendentalist, and no mistake.
No. 40. Natural affection betraying itself.—A man of influence and character was dying slowly of consumption. Being satisfied that his days were numbered—his very breathings counted—he used to call his little son to the bed-side, the pet of the household, and say to him, whenever he wanted any little thing done, that by and by, after he was dead and buried, the horse and carriage, and money-box, would all be little Sammy's. At last the father died, and the little fellow, then about five years of age,—with his grandfather and mother, were about leaving the graveyard,—snatched the reins from his grandfather, and sung out, "Get up, old hoss! You's mine now, carriage, money-box and all!" Had he been a few years older, he would have kept the secret to himself, and peradventure looked sorrowful over the untimely inheritance.
No. 41. Little Frank had been told to believe that we are all made of dust. One day, as he stood watching at the window, while a strong wind was whirling the dust into eddies, and hurrying it away into holes and corners, and there piling it up with the dried leaves, his mother asked him what he was thinking of. "O," said he, with uncommon seriousness for so young a philosopher, "I thought the dust looked as though there was going to be another little boy."
No. 42. A very little chap, who would no more have thought of going to bed without saying his prayers, than of going to bed without his supper, while the goodies were in sight, had just bidden everybody good-night, with a warm, loving kiss. That very day his mother had been teaching him the lines, "You'd scarce expect one of my age," and so he began his little prayer in the following fashion: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep; if I should chance to fall below Demosthenes or Cicero, don't view me with a cricket's eye, but——"
"Hush, hush!" said his mother; "O hush, my boy! that's no part of the prayer."
"Yes it is too, mamma—don't view me with a cricket's eye," etc., etc.
Didn't that mother laugh a little to herself, think you? I'll bet she did.