“Now, listen, Clary,” we said—his name was Clarence Fitzherbert Alencon de Marchemont Caruthers—“and learn about George Washington.”
“Who’s he?” inquired Clarence, etc.
“Listen,” we said; “he was the father of his country.”
“Whose country?”
“Ours—yours and mine; the confederated union of the American people, cemented with the life-blood of the men of ’76 poured out upon the altars of our country as the dearest libation to liberty that her votaries can offer.”
“Who did?” asked Clarence.
There is a peculiar tact in talking to children that very few people possess. Now most people would have grown impatient, and lost their temper, when little Clarence asked so many irrelevant questions, but we did not. We knew that, however careless he might appear at first, we could soon interest him in the story, and he would be all eyes and ears. So we smiled sweetly—that same sweet smile which you may have noticed on our photographs. Just the faintest ripple of a smile breaking across the face like a ray of sunlight, and checked by lines of tender sadness, just before the two ends of it pass each other at the back of the neck. And so, smiling, we went on.
“Well, one day George’s father——”
“George who?” asked Clarence.
“George Washington. He was a little boy then, just like you. One day his father——”