Great Mysteries And Little Plagues Part 10

"Down to sleep"--'To sleep,' she murmured, And the curly head dropped low; "I pray the Lord"--I gently added, You can say it all, I know.

"'Pray the Lord'--the word came faintly, Fainter still--'My soul to keep;'

Then the tired head fairly nodded, And the child was fast asleep.

"But the dewy eyes half opened When I clasped her to my breast, And the dear voice softly whispered, 'Mamma, G.o.d knows all the rest.'"

No. 154. _Natural Language._--A youngster of only two and a half, who had often heard complaints in the family about pegs hurting the feet, stole up to his mother one day, with his fingers in his mouth, and said, "Mamma! O mamma! Me dut pegs tummin in my mouf, and dey hurts Billy." On further examination, he was found to be cutting no less than three little teeth.

No. 155. _An embryo Theologian._--A little boy, disputing one day with his elder sister upon some Bible question, sung out, "I tell ye, it's true! for Ma says so; an' if Ma says so, it is so, if it ain't so." That boy's career is evident enough. Submission to authority, and sheer dogmatism, will be likely to overtop the pretensions of private judgment.

No. 156. _Budding Subterfuges._--A little girl, belonging to Hartford, Connecticut, was called to account one day by her mother for killing flies. The amus.e.m.e.nt had become a serious occupation, and her dexterity in catching them was only to be matched by her astonishing apt.i.tude in killing them. Her mother had begun to be frightened. "Mary, my love,"

said she, "don't you know that G.o.d loves the little flies?"

Mary stood for a few moments, lost in thought, her beautiful countenance growing sadder and sadder, as if her conscience had begun to testify against her in a whisper, just as poor Herod's might have done, after the slaughter of _his_ innocents. At last, having apparently settled the question with herself, she stole up to the nearest window where a big blue-bottle was blundering and b.u.mping about, and buzzing at a fearful rate. After watching it for several minutes, with a piteous expression, as if her heart were too full for speech, she began whispering just loud enough to be heard by her mother, "Do ee fy know dat Dod loves oo?

Duz oo love Dod?"--stretching out her little hand as if to soothe its evident terror. "Duz oo? Duz oo want to zee Dod?--well," in a tone of the tenderest commiseration, putting her finger on the fly, and crushing it softly against the gla.s.s--"Well--oo sal!"

No. 157. _A young Nero._--And this reminds me of something told me by General Fessenden, the father of all the general Fessendens we know of.

"When I was a little fellow," said he, "not more than so high, the Old Adam within me (what we Phrenologists call Destructiveness, he meant) led me to pull off the wings of flies, and to impale them on pins, and set them buzzing at the end of a hair. My father, in pa.s.sing one day, stopped long enough to catch me in the act. '_Nero!_' said he, and pa.s.sed on. 'Well,' said I to myself, 'what did he mean by that?

_Nero--Nero_--I'll ask somebody.' I did so--found out who Nero was, and from that day to this, have never tormented any of G.o.d's creatures! And yet, he was a lawyer, in large practice--and I believed him--that is, I believed him, till I knew better."

No. 158. _Total Depravity._--"Do you say your prayers every day, my little man--every night and morning?" said a mother in Israel to a little reprobate of a shoe-black, to whom she had just given a trifle.

"Yes 'm,--I alluz says 'em at night, mum; but any smart boy can alluz take care o' hisself in the daytime," was the reply.

No. 159. _Infant Theology._--A visitor of large experience in sabbath-schools, asked the children at a crowded examination, "What was the sin of the Pharisees?" "Eatin' camels, ma'am," said one of the smartest, who had carried off many a prize. On further questioning, the child justified, by referring to the pa.s.sage, where the Pharisees were said to strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.

No. 160. _Sabbath-school Exercise._--But an English gentlewoman once told me of something she herself had witnessed at a great London sabbath-school examination, where a celebrated questioner called out a little bright-eyed boy, by name, and asked him why Joseph refused to go to bed with Potiphar's wife, when she asked him. A dead silence followed, and then a look of amazement and consternation over all the house, like a cloud: "'Cause he wan't sleepy," said the boy. A dead silence followed; and then a most unseemly t.i.tter, on every side, so that the questioner's indiscretion seemed to be entirely lost sight of.

No. 161. _Effectual Prayer._--A little boy in Jamaica went to the missionary, and told him that he had been very ill, and often wished for the minister to come and pray with him.

"But, Thomas," said the missionary, "I hope you prayed for yourself?"

"O yes, indeed!"

"Well--and how did you pray?"

"O, I jess begged."

Another child in a Sunday-school, only six at most, said, "When we kneel down here in the school-room to pray, it seems to me as if my heart was talking with G.o.d."

Another little girl, just turning four, on being questioned why she prayed to G.o.d, answered--

"Because I know He hears me, and so I love to pray to Him."

"But how do you know He hears you?"

Putting her little hand upon her heart, she whispered, "O, I know He does, mamma, because there is something here that tells me so."

No. 162. _t.i.t for Tat._--A pretty four-year-old midget went out to play on the sidewalk. When she returned with wet and muddy feet, showing that she had been somewhere else, her mother began to look serious; whereupon the child, antic.i.p.ating the worst, murmured, with her head in her mother's lap, "Now, mamma, you be _dood_ to me, and I'll be _dood_ to you."

No. 163. _A very proper Distinction._--A little thing, not quite old enough to understand her catechism, getting puzzled over the question, "Who made you?" went for the answer to her mother. Having been told that G.o.d made her, and all her little friends, and the whole human family, she lost no time in communicating the discovery to Daisy Dean, her doll of only one summer. Taking the little one on her knee, and looking very solemn, she said, "Now, Daisy Dean, look me right in the eyes: I want to tell 'oo somesin. Dod _made_ grampa--and gramma--and me--and papa and mamma; but----" after a pause, and shaking her head slowly and impressively--"_but_, Daisy Dean, Dod only _sewed_ you."

No. 164. _Human Nature._--A boy of about five, a bagfull of b.u.mble-bees at the best, when required to be still on the Sabbath, getting weary toward nightfall, went up to his father, who had no little of the Puritan mingled with his affection for the child, and said to him, with great seriousness,--"Come, pa, let's have some spiritual fun." This was a little too much for papa's gravity; and so he let him have it--for once.

No. 165. _Courtesy._--"A Brooklyn friend, who believes in catechism, and teaches it with unflinching pertinacity, worthy of Calvin or Luther,"

says somebody--"was putting one of four through his paces one day, when the question came up, 'Who tempted Eve?' The little fellow answered, after some consideration, with a look of triumph, pointing to the floor, 'It's the gentleman that lives _down there_--I forget his name.'" For "_down there_," the reader is at liberty to subst.i.tute another phrase, if he happens not to be of the mealy-mouthed.

No. 166. _Doll-Factory._--A preacher in the neighborhood of Lewiston had a little daughter, who had gone into the business of manufacturing paper dolls. In the midst of a sermon, lately, he drew out his pocket-handkerchief, in somewhat of a hurry, and lo! the whole air was filled with what seemed at first to be j.a.panese b.u.t.terflies. When they settled, however, they were found to be paper dolls, about fifty in number, which had been stowed away in his pocket-handkerchief, by his little one, for safe keeping. The audience appeared to enjoy the rest of the sermon exceedingly.

No. 167. _Undiluted Orthodoxy._--A little girl was much in the habit of reproving her dolls for misbehavior, and sometimes after a most alarming fashion. Her mother overheard her one day, while she was taking the prettiest to task for being so naughty: "O you naughty, sinful child,"

said she, shaking the poor little waxen image, "you'll go to the lake of fire and brimstone, you will! and you won't burn up, like other babies--you'll only jest _sizzle_."

No. 168. _Puzzling Questions._--A little boy, who had just been admitted to the sabbath-school, was greatly scandalized at finding, on his way home, an apothecary's shop in full blast at a neighboring corner. "But, my dear," said mamma, "the druggist is obliged to keep open Sunday, so that sick people may get medicine." "Why! do people get sick on Sunday?"

"Yes, just as on any other day." "Well, good people don't die on Sunday, do they?" "Certainly." "Why, how can that be? Does heaven keep open Sunday?"

No. 169. _Childish Faith._--The Portland Transcript knows of a little four-year-old, who, being out for a sail, was told by his mother that they were now on the sea. "On the sea, mamma! then who'll take care of us?" "G.o.d, my dear--He will take care of us." "O yes--I know--_he's one o' them kind_."

No. 170. The same inquisitive chap could not understand how two boys who had died before he was born, could be his brothers. Mamma explained, that being her children they were his brothers, though G.o.d had taken them away to live with Him, before _he_ was born. He was very silent and thoughtful for a few moments, and then exclaimed, "_O yes, I see--I used to play with 'em up there in heaven, before I came down here._"

No. 171. _The Boy and the Bobbylink._--A bird lighted on a twig near a little rugged-and-tough, hardly old enough to make himself understood.

The child took up a stone to throw at him, after the fashion of older boys. Just then the little songster opened fire: "Bob-o'-link!

bobbylink! won't you, will ye! will ye, won't you! I'll mend your breeches if you'll find the pieces--bobbylink!--link--link!" The boy's outstretched arm dropped slowly down to his side. "Why didn't you let fly, sonny?" said a stranger who had been watching him, and was not a little curious to see how the struggle would end. The boy shook his head, with a sorrowful air, but said nothing. "You might have killed him and carried him home," said the stranger.

"I touldn't," said the little scapegrace.

"Couldn't! and why not, pray?"

"'_Cause he sung so._"

No. 172. _Superfluities._--A youngster, on being taken to the window of a toy-shop where he saw a _papier mache_ mouse, which, on being wound up, ran hither and thither, and whisked about like a live mouse, turned away with ineffable contempt, saying, "O no, mamma, I don't want that!

we've got lots of 'em at home, and don't have to wind 'em up, neither."

No. 173. _Imitation!_--Two children of St. Louis were "playing butcher"

not long ago. He who personated the ox doesn't go to school any more.

One blow with a hatchet from a st.u.r.dy five-year-old, nearly split his head; but he bellowed so frightfully, as to alarm the neighborhood, and bring relief, just as the hatchet was lifted for another blow.

No. 174. _Soliloquies._--A little six-year-old, while undressing one night, with his arms over his head tying his night-gown behind, was overheard saying to himself, "I can beat Tommy Tucker, I can; I can write my name in writin'; I can tell the time o' day by the clock, I can spell Nebuchadnezzar, yes--and what's more--I can tie a double bow-knot." There's a reasonable amount of self-complacency for you! He was made for an author, and may soon be getting up his autobiography.

No. 175. Another little chap under four, while wading through a mud-puddle after a heavy shower, came across an angle-worm, and then fell into a reverie,--"Worms--they are the snakes' babies; little mices--they are the rats' babies; and the stars--they are the moon's babies--don't I know"--splash! splash!

No. 176. _Capital definition of Happiness._--A six-year-old school-girl of Norwich, Connecticut, was asked for a definition of the word "happy."

"O, it is to feel as if you wanted to give all your things to your little sister."

No. 177. _A fair Inference._--"Mamma," said a promising chap of four summers, "if the people are all made of dust, ain't the colored folks made of coal-dust?"

No. 178. _Not so bad._--A well-known, faithful teacher of Bridgeport, who has charge of an infant cla.s.s in a Sunday-school there, reports the following case. Not long ago he was talking with them about the origin of Christmas:--

"Where was Christ born?" he asked.