"Why, Bobby," said his mother, "where did you pick up such words?"
"O, I've heard you say Gracious, mamma, and the golly-gosh I just made up myself," was the reply.
One day this dear mother, who had expostulated and pleaded with him till she had no patience left, said she could bear with him no longer; she wouldn't have a little boy round her that used such language; and so she would have to put him away, and try to find another little son. In the bitterness and desolation of his heart, Master Bobby went out into the yard, and sat down on the grass to have a good cry by himself; whereupon a little bantam rooster, not understanding the case, flew up on the fence, and fell a-crowing like all possessed. "Shut up, darn you!" blubbered Bobby, through his big dropping tears; "I've trouble enough on my mind, without you!" He had just promised never to use that, nor any other naughty word again, while he breathed the breath of life.
And for a time he kept his promise. But one day, just when they began to feel greatly encouraged, he burst into the room with, "Oh, mother! what do you think? I was coming through the field just now, and a horse was tied there—the wickedest horse ever you did see; an' he jist stood still there, and kept sayin' 'By golly!' and 'By gosh!' and 'Dod darn you!' and everything else he could think of. If you'd a been there, you'd a-whipped him, oh, ever so hard, mamma! wouldn't you? And so would I, if I'd had a whip." His mind was relieved.
No. 233. Fishing and Mousing.—"Some years ago," says the New England correspondent of—I forget what paper, "my cousin kept a district school. Among her scholars was a little fellow of perhaps four years of age, but too young to speak plainly. One day, when all the others were hard at work, this youngster got hold of a pin and a string. The pin he bent into the shape of a fish-hook, baiting it with a morsel of cheese. He had seen a mouse come up through a hole in the corner of the hearth, not long before, and went to work 'bobbing for whales.' On being asked what he was at, he answered, 'Fishin' for a mousie.' This being rather out of the usual course of study, the teacher, by way of punishment, ordered him to stay where he was, and keep bobbing, till further orders. After a while, there was a commotion; the mouse, it seemed, had swallowed the cheese, hook and all, and the next moment Master Jerry, giving a sudden jerk, sprang into the middle of the room, and swinging the mouse round his head, shouted, 'I've dut 'im! I thware I've dut 'im!'"
No. 234. Sunday-school Conundrums.—A smart little chap, with a wicked eye, on being asked what was the chief end of man, replied, "The end what's got the head on."
No. 235. Inferential.—"Oh, mamma! mamma!" shouted a little shaver, as he saw the sun going down, all red, like the opening to a furnace-fire, "see how hot the sky is over there! Santa Claus is bakin', I guess."
Another of these natural philosophers, in petticoats, on hearing a man dump coal into the bin with a terrible rumbling, shouted, "Oh, mother! now I know what makes thunder. It is God puttin' coal on."
No. 236. Coming to the Point.—"Tilly, my love," said a young mother to a daughter in her fourth summer, "what would you do without your mother?"
"I should put on every day just such a dress as I wanted to," said Tilly, coquetting with her little fan.