I have heard of a little boy who was continually being told that he should be good.
"And if I am gooder, and gooder," he asked, "what will I be?"
"Oh, you will be a little angel."
"But I don't want to be an angel," he retorted; "I want to be an engine-driver." They are never else than frank in their statements. A mother who suffers from severe headaches, said to her little girl about eight, one day not long ago, "What would you do, Lottie dear, if your darling mother was taken away from you—if she died?" "Well, mother," was the little one's startling answer, "I suppose we would cry at first—then we would bury you, and then we would come home and take all the money out of your pocket." Now, while it is possible that something else might also be done, it is almost certain—yea, it is certain, without doubt—that all these ceremonials, however reluctantly, would, in turn, be duly performed.
From a story bearing on death to one relating to birth is a transition not so unnatural as may at the first blush appear. And births are affairs ever of prime interest to children. Not many years ago it happened in a village in Perthshire that twins arrived in a family, and next day one of the little misses of the house was out on the street playing, when a neighbouring lady came up to where she was, and, "So you've got two little babies at home, Bizzie," she remarked. "Yes," responded the little one, very solemnly; "and do you know, my father was away at Edinburgh when the doctor brought them. But it was a good thing my mother was in; for if she hadna, there would have been naebody in the house but me, and I wadna have kent what to do wi' them." They tell this delightful story of the little daughter of Professor Van Dyke, of the Philadelphia University:—
"Papa, where were you born?"
"In Boston, my dear."
"Where was mamma born?"
"In San Francisco."
"And where was I born?"