Now, for instance, one evenin' he asked me about 3,000 questions about the Atlantic Ocian, its whales and sharks and tides and steamships and islands and pirates and cable and sailors and coral and salt, and etc., etc., and etcetery; and after a hour or two he couldn't think of another thing to ask, seemin'ly. And I begun to get real encouraged, though fagged to the very outmost limit of fag, when he drew a long breath, and says with a perfectly fresh, vigorous look,—
“Now less begin on the Pacific.”
And I answered kindly, but with firmness,—
“I can't tackle any more ocians to-night, I am too tuckered out.”
“Well,” says he, glancin' out of the window at the new moon which hung like a slender golden bow in the west, “don't you think the moon to-night is shaped some like a hammock? and if I set down in it with my feet hanging out, would I be dizzy? and if I should curl my feet up, and lay back in it, and sail—and sail—and sail up into the sky, could I find out about things up in the heavens? Could I find the One up there that set me to breathing? And who made the One that made me? And where was I before I was made?—and uncle Josiah and Ury? And why wouldn't I tell him where we was before we was anywhere? and if we wasn't anywhere, did I suppose we would want to be somewhere? and say—SAY”—
Oh, dear me! dear me! how I did suffer!
But a better child never lived than he was, and I would have loved to seen anybody dispute it. He was a lovely child, and very deep.