"I did wash it, sir," said Johnny.
"You didn't wipe it all over, then?"
"I did wipe it, as high up as my shirt would go."
And this reminds me of a little boy who had been told never to go into the water without leave. One day he came home heated and tired, with his shirt on wrong side out. "You've been in a-swimming, Josie," said his mother. "No, mamma." "How came your shirt turned inside out, then?" "Wal," said Josie, after a moment's hesitation, "I rather guess it was when I got over that high fence, and turned a somerset, head first."
No. 151. A new Version.—A boy in our District School was reading a lesson from the Bible in that deliberate fashion so usual with chaps of six, and when he came to the passage, "Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from guile," he drawled out, with a decided emphasis, "Keep—thy—tongue from evil; and thy lips from—from—girls." Of course, there followed an explosion. "Job was an oyster-man; and the Lord, he shot him with four balls," if we may believe a new reading of what was intended for Scripture: "Somebody was an austere man; and the Lord smote him with sore boils."
No. 152. Children and Fools are said to speak the Truth.—"Be you good?" said a little chap to Miss Bella M——, of the sabbath-school here.
"O no!" was the becoming reply.
"You ain't! well I knew you wasn't pretty, but I always thought you was good."
No. 153. The following sweet lines are too good for abridgment, or paraphrase. I know not where they originated; nor who was the author. Was there ever anything more childlike and beautiful than "Mamma, God knows all the rest?"—or ever lines worthier of the text?
THE UNFINISHED PRAYER.