No. 136. A dangerous Query.—A pupil was asked what S double E spelt. Being rather slow with his answer, the teacher grew impatient, and exclaimed, "You dunce! What is it I do with my eyes?" "O', I know the word now, ma'am—S double E, squint."
No. 137. Constructiveness.—The Springfield Republican tells of a young gentleman who doesn't want to be the last angel God makes, because "he wants to see how He makes 'em."
No. 138. Imitation.—A little girl at Keokuk, Iowa, was lately found in a barn giving trapèze performances to quite a gathering of wee folks. They had fitted up a trapèze, with an old clothes-line and a broomstick, at an elevation of twenty feet. "The party was broken up," says a spectator, "before anything else was broken."
No. 139. The Tables turned.—"Are you talking to me, sir?" said a respectable man to a little scapegrace, who had been holding what he called an argument with his papa; "I'm your father, sir. Remember that, sir!"
"Well, who's to blame for that, I should like to know—'taint me," said the boy.
No. 140. Language.—A bright, clear-eyed little thing of three summers, after listening demurely to a chapter of the Old Testament, which her father read to the family aloud one pleasant Sabbath, looked up with the air of one who felt called upon to say something, in the dead silence that followed, and whispered, "Papa, ain't God a funny fellow?" What knew that child of irreverence? What she meant to say was that she had been delighted.
No. 141. A new Paraphrase.—A father, who always insisted upon his children giving their version of what they heard, in their own language, to show that they understood it, asked Charlie to repeat the text which they had been listening to.
Charlie hesitated awhile, and then, as if it had come to him all at once, broke out with, "What are you loafing round here for, doin' nothing? Go into my barn-yard, and go to work, and I'll make it all right with you."
The text was, "Why stand ye here all the day idle? Go into the vineyard and work, and whatsoever is right, I will pay thee." Who will venture to say that the poor child did not understand the meaning?
No. 142. The Darlings.—"Mamma!" shouted Lollipop, "make Bobby 'have himself; every time I hit him with the whap-stick he hollars out."