No. 102. Children are wonders. No matter how well acquainted with them we may be, they are always taking us off our feet. A pious woman heard a child, as she thought, say—and the child, too, of godly parents—"Dam it to hell—who buys?"—having a basket on his arm, containing she knew not what, so shocked was she. On reporting the case at head-quarters, the affair was investigated, and it turned out that the poor little fellow had a bushel of damsons, which he made believe hawk round, after the fashion of small dealers who cry their wares in the street. What he tried to say was, "Damsons to sell—who buys?"
No. 103. "How many sisters did you say, my dear?" "Only one beside myself." "And how many brothers?" "None at all." "What! no brother!" "No sir; mamma don't approve of boys." That's a fact.
No. 104. A little nigger-boy at the South had just been equipped with a new suit of clothes, the first he ever had in his life, you may be sure. Next morning he appeared with one leg of the trousers ripped up from shoe to waistband. On being asked how it happened, he answered, "Please ma'am, I wanted to hear it flop!"
No. 105. Another little boy, while playing by himself on the carpet, burst out with a ringing laugh. On being questioned, it turned out that he had taken off the tail of a little toy pony, and stuck it into the pony's mouth. "Papa," said he, "do Dod see everything?" "Yes, my boy." "Well, then, I dess Dod will laugh, when He sees my pony."
No. 106. "I have somewhere met with a story," says a pleasant, gossiping observer, "about a man who went, one dark night, to steal corn from his neighbor's patch. He had taken his little boy with him to keep watch. The man jumped over the fence with a large bag on his arm; but before he began to fill it, he stopped and looked about on all sides, and, not seeing anybody, was just going to work, when his little boy cried out, 'Oh, father, father! there is one way you haven't looked yet!'
"The old man was rather startled, and asked what he meant.
"'Why,' said the little one, 'you forgot to look up.'
"The father was silent—thunder-struck—as if he had been admonished by a little guardian angel: he went back to the fence, took his little boy by the hand, and hurried away without the corn."
No. 107. A mother was reading to her child, a boy of seven, about another little boy whose father had lately died, leaving the family destitute, whereupon the boy went to work for himself, and managed to support them all.
"Now, my little man," said mother, after she had finished the story, "if papa should be taken away, wouldn't you like to help your poor mother and your little sisters?"