No. 83. Lilly and Nina had prepared a doll's breakfast, and arrayed it on a side-board, while they went to take a romp in the garden. Master Bob, their little brother, clambered up the side-board and began gobbling the dainties, as boys will do, you know, whatever may be their age. "Why, Bobby!" said his mother, looking in at the open door, "what are you doing there?" "Playin' pussy, mamma."
No. 84. At a country fair in New Jersey, not long ago, a little boy who was running about, like a distracted thing, and bawling as if he would split his throat, was asked what was the matter. "I want my mammy," said he, "that's what's the matter! Didn't I tell the darned thing she'd lose me?"
No. 85. A little four-year-old went to church in Bridgeport, Connecticut, last summer. On getting home, her mother asked her if she remembered the text. "O yes, mamma; it was this: 'The Ladies Sewing Circle will meet at Mrs. So-and-so's house, on Monday afternoon.'" A capital text, whatever may have been the sermon.
No. 86. A Boston boy, five years of age, and a type of many now flourishing there, if not a type of that class who are to be the gold-brokers of hereafter, at least a representative boy of the shrewd and calculating, now on their way up in the cashier-business, which so often ends of late in there being neither cash-here nor cash-there for stockholders, having stolen, or appropriated, a can of milk, was taken solemnly to task for the misdemeanor by his loving mother. "What on earth were you going to do with the milk?" said she. "O, I was going to steal a little puppy to drink it," was the reply. Perfectly satisfactory, no doubt, like certifying checks by the handful, and appropriating, or conveying, the gold of widows and orphans by the wheelbarrow-load into a friend's pocket, or in speculating where what you gain is yours, and what you lose, another's.
No. 87. A clergyman asked some children why we say Our Father who art in Heaven, since God is everywhere? A little drummer-boy, who stood afar off, looked as if he understood the question. "Well, my little soldier, what have you to say?" "Because it's head-quarters," he replied.
No. 88. "A little nephew of ours," says a contributor, "went with his sister to school not long ago, for the first time. They kept him there five mortal hours, with a short recess, which he did not know how to take advantage of. On being asked how he enjoyed the school, he answered, 'Petty well, I tank you, but I dut awfully rested.'"
No. 89. A Specimen of Childish Faith, which, if not dwarfed nor blighted, would be enough—almost—to move Mountains, after getting its growth.—Two little girls, one nine and the other eleven, on getting up one morning, had a trial to see which would get dressed first. Little Sue was the winner; and turning to her sister, with the triumphant air of a victor at the Olympian games, she said, "I knew I should beat you, Sissy; for I asked God to help me, and I knew He would."
No. 90. A fine-looking, saucy, high-spirited girl of ten, bought of a fashionable shoe-maker a pair of warranted boots. They broke out with one day's wear. She carried them back to him. After turning them over, inside and out, awhile, he said, "They were not taken in quite enough, I see." "No," she replied, "but I was."
No. 91. A promising little chap having heard it stated confidentially that a neighbor was married, and that she had a little boy and girl, stowed the fact away for future use; and not long after reproduced it in a large company of ladies and gentlemen, after this fashion: "Miss M——, I tink our tortus-shell tat's ben dittin married—she's dut tittens." But tortoise-shell cats don't have kittens—at least, not of themselves, if by proxy; but qui facit per alium facit per se, as the lawyers say; and the little boy may have misunderstood the symptoms.
No. 92. Charley, the other day, on seeing three or four funerals in swift succession, expressed a wish that he might die "before Heaven was too full."