Betty is making an apple-pye. You love an apple-pye; but I do not bid you make one. Your hands are not ſtrong enough to mix the butter and flour together; and you muſt not try to pare the apples, becauſe you cannot manage a great knife.
Never touch the large knives: they are very ſharp, and you might cut your finger to the bone. You are a little girl, and ought to have a little knife. When you are as tall as I am, you ſhall have a knife as large as mine; and when you are as ſtrong as I am, and have learned to manage it, you will not hurt yourſelf.
You can trundle a hoop, you ſay; and jump over a ſtick. O, I forgot!—and march like the men in the red coats, when papa plays a pretty tune on the fiddle.
LESSON XI.
WHAT, you think that you ſhall ſoon be able to dreſs yourſelf entirely? I am glad of it: I have ſomething elſe to do. You may go, and look for your frock in the drawer; but I will tie it, till you are ſtronger. Betty will tie it, when I am buſy.
I button my gown myſelf: I do not want a maid to aſſiſt me, when I am dreſſing. But you have not yet got ſenſe enough to do it properly, and muſt beg ſomebody to help you, till you are older.
Children grow older and wiſer at the ſame time. William is not able to take a piece of meat, becauſe he has not got the ſenſe which would make him think that, without teeth, meat would do him harm. He cannot tell what is good for him.
The ſenſe of children grows with them. You know much more than William, now you walk alone, and talk; but you do not know as much as the boys and girls you ſee playing yonder, who are half as tall again as you; and they do not know half as much as their fathers and mothers, who are men and women grown. Papa and I were children, like you; and men and women took care of us. I carry William, becauſe he is too weak to walk. I lift you over a ſtile, and over the gutter, when you cannot jump over it.
You know already, that potatoes will not do you any harm: but I muſt pluck the fruit for you, till you are wiſe enough to know the ripe apples and pears. The hard ones would make you ſick, and then you muſt take phyſic. You do not love phyſic: I do not love it any more than you. But I have more ſenſe than you; therefore I take care not to eat unripe fruit, or any thing elſe that would make my ſtomach ache, or bring out ugly red ſpots on my face.
When I was a child, my mamma choſe the fruit for me, to prevent my making myſelf ſick. I was juſt like you; I uſed to aſk for what I ſaw, without knowing whether it was good or bad. Now I have lived a long time, I know what is good; I do not want any body to tell me.
