No. 65. O Hush!—A gentleman was admiring the beautiful hair of a young, handsome, fashionable widow, when her little girl, who had no idea of being overlooked, observed, with a fling and a pout, "I guess my hair would look well too, if I took as much care of it. Mamma never sleeps in her hair." Of course pollywog took a lesson, after bed-time, with the young ladies who "tingle, skeem, an' dance."
No. 66. A clergyman of astonishing pertinacity, having tired out a large congregation long before he had reached his tenthly, stopped to take breath and wipe the sweat from his forehead, and was just beginning afresh, when a little miss, just under the pulpit, exclaimed, "O mother! he aint a-goin' to stop at all! he is a-swellin' up again."
No. 67. A fine manly little fellow of five years tumbled on the door-step and cut his upper lip, so that a surgeon had to sew it up. He sat in his mother's lap during the operation, pale and speechless, though large tears gathered in his eyes, and seemed just ready to fall. "O dear!" said she, as the doctor finished off, "I'm afraid it will leave a bad scar." "Never mind," said Charley, patting her on the cheek, "never mind, mother, darling, my mustache will cover it!"
There's a hero for you. How much better than Nelson's "Kiss me, Hardy."
No. 68. A boy who was warmly praised for not having once taken his eyes off the preacher, answered, in the honesty of his little heart, "O, I only wanted to see how near he was to the end."
No. 69. A Sandusky mother—was she a gipsy?—so runs the little story, was reproving her three-year-old perplexity for eating icicles. "I didn't eat 'em, mamma," said he, "I only sucked the juice out of 'em." Worthy of any bar on earth, and of almost any special pleader in politics or law, metaphysics or political economy.
No. 70. "The little darling! It didn't strike neighbor Smith's poor little baby a-purpose, did he? It was a mere accident, wasn't it, dear?" "Yes, mamma, to be sure it was, an' if he don't behave himself an' stop makin' mouths at me, I'll crack him again."
No. 71. "Well Susie, how do you like your school?" "O, ever so much, papa." "That's right, Susie. And now tell me what you have learned to-day?" "Well, papa, I've learned the names of all the little boys."
And what more would you have? though the young lady were at a boarding-school, and learning the polka, and the waltz, or the schottische?
No. 72. "I say, my fine fellow, where's this road go to?" "It hain't ben nowhere sence we've lived in these parts." A legal question put to a witness on the stand, legally answered—hey?