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CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 EDITED 
 
 WITH A DIGRESSION ON THE 
 
 SMALL PEOPLE 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM CANTON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the INVISIBLE PLAYMATE,'* "a CHILD's 
 BOOK OF SAINTS," ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 ISBISTER AND COMPANY Limited 
 
 15 & 16 TAVISTOCK STREET COVENT GARDEN 
 
 NEW YORK 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 1901 . c 
 
V 
 
 ^\\ 
 
 v^ 
 
 (L^ 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 I DO not know of a more conclusive proof that 
 the wisdom of the East has not been overrated 
 than the fact that among the Hindoos the 
 Children are known as the Baba log — the Baba 
 folk. For the word baba is primarily a term of 
 reverence applied to the head of a household, 
 the ancient of the hearth, the old man vener- 
 able. 
 
 Scholars, of course, have ingeniously wasted 
 much time in trying to discover what was the 
 intention of the wise or witty man who first 
 bestowed that remarkably accurate appellation. 
 Some have conjectured that he must have been 
 a believer in reincarnation, and have fancied 
 that he recognised in the bald, reflective bit of 
 humanity he called *^ son '' an ancient ancestor 
 returned to the goodly earth for another lease 
 of life. Others have fancied that he was a 
 profound philosopher who, looking into the 
 7 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 long vistas of the future with their swarming 
 generations, felt himself compelled to treat the 
 
 . baba with the respect due to the prospective 
 parent of an innumerable progeny. 
 
 Others, again — and these I am disposed to 
 believe have come nearer the truth — supposed 
 him to have been a pleasantly ironical person, 
 who, on finding that the new-comer had 
 usurped his place of importance, and appro- 
 priated to himself his various creature comforts, 
 had resigned his soul to the inevitable with a 
 solitary word of humorous sarcasm— aimed 
 probably at the babcCs mother. 
 
 Whatever the correct explanation may be, it 
 is obvious that no more adequate name could 
 have been devised for that irrepressible and 
 irresponsible " third estate,'' which has tyran- 
 
 \ nised over good men and devoted women from 
 the beginning of time. 
 
 On the whole, the Baba log seem to have 
 used their power graciously. One finds that 
 in all ages their slaves and dependents took a 
 delight in serving them, treasured as a joyful 
 possession the memories of the days of their 
 servitude, and when they outlived them, spoke 
 of them with tears, and rarely outlived the 
 sorrow of losing their small taskmasters. 
 
 8 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 East and West, tradition is the same : they 
 have ever been a race of plaguey, adorable, 
 impish, angelic, indistinguishable, unique little 
 creatures ; radiant as the dawn, changeable as 
 April ; the dewy flower of humanity. Many 
 of the beautiful things said about them have 
 perished, but one of the finest survives. ^* The 
 V great man," said Mencius, the Chinese sage, 
 '*is he who does not lose his child's heart." 
 Grave old Homer, who was not given to trifling, 
 takes pleasure in thinking of the motherly 
 hand which brushes away the flies from the 
 face of the sleeping babe ; he smiles at the 
 woeful two-year-old who plucks at the gown of 
 the mother, too busy at first to take her up 
 and cuddle her, but compelled at last to yield 
 to the child's persistency ; he knows what a 
 delight it is to a little fellow to have two or 
 three trees in the garden that he can call his 
 very own ; he has watched the youngsters mak- 
 ing sand forts on the seashore, and has laughed 
 to see the ass munch his way at leisure 
 through the corn in spite of the blows showered 
 on him by the feeble bird-scarers. Then one 
 remembers the babes on the chest of Cypselus, 
 and the small people of Tanagra, and the 
 weeping maid at the knee of Niobe, and the 
 9 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 little maker of locust-cages in Theocritus, and 
 the carver of peach-stones in Aristophanes, and 
 the legend of Euphanes at Epidaurus ; and no 
 more is needed to indicate how in the old, old 
 y- centuries the Baba log were loved by sages, 
 
 ^artists, and poets. 
 
 How far that love differed from ours in these 
 days it would be difficult to say. In its 
 natural elements it was doubtless identical 
 with our own. Indeed, there is a curiously 
 modern air about the answer of the Greek 
 statesman when, in reply to the question whom 
 he considered the most powerful person in 
 Athens, he pointed to his three-year-old and 
 
 \ said, *' He rules his mother, and his mother 
 rules me." But it surely lacked the sense of 
 mystery, the spiritual surmises and forecast- 
 ings, the feeling of nearness to the unseen 
 world, which with ourselves are such common 
 experiences in our intercourse with the inscrut- 
 able new-comers. There was also wanting 
 the sentiment which has come down to us 
 from the foreshadowing of the Jerusalem of> 
 Zechariah, **full of boys and^ girls playing in 
 the streets thereof"; from the vision of the 
 peace of the world foretold by Isaiah, when 
 the reptile should cease to sting, and the wild 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 creature should lie down with the tame, and a 
 child should lead them ; from the star-lit mys- 
 tery of the manger between the ox and the ass ; 
 from the parable drawn by a divine spectator 
 of the singing-games of the children in the 
 Jewish market-place ; from the new charter 
 given to childhood when a little one was set in 
 the midst of the impatient and undiscerning 
 disciples of the Master. 
 
 Much of that tradition of the Child the Jew 
 carried with him into the far lands of his exile. 
 The greybeard might have surrendered his last 
 hope of ever again seeing the Holy City and the 
 blessed hills which encompass it, but he found 
 a happiness in the thought that his children or 
 his children's children might one day return to 
 Zidn. So, on the eve of the Passover, when the 
 departure from Egypt was told once more with 
 laughter and tears and song and good cheer, a 
 Httle fellow in the garb of a pilgrim came in, 
 staff in hand and bread-wallet on shoulder, and 
 the master of the house greeted him with the 
 question, '^ Whence comest thou, O pilgrim ? " 
 "From, Egypt," was the reply. "Art thou 
 delivered from bondage ? " " Yes, I am free." 
 "Whither goest thou?" "To Jerusalem." 
 " Nay, ta.rry with us to read the recital of the 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 Passover." And thereupon the ancient story, 
 In exitu Israel de Egypto, was read from some 
 long-treasured scroll. 
 
 Strangely modified by the casuistry of the 
 Christian theologians, the tradition of the Child 
 spread throughout Europe. Every now and 
 then, in the musty old chronicles written in 
 crabbed Latin, one comes across a beautiful 
 little passage which looks as if a flower, pressed 
 between the leaves half a dozen centuries ago, 
 had been changed into words and made itself a 
 place in the text. 
 
 Think, for instance, of that strange incident 
 in the history of Augsburg, when all the babes 
 of the city were gathered together and laid on 
 the pavement before the high altar of the church, 
 ,.so that their cries might move the Lord to save 
 the people from the sword of the besieging 
 Huns. 
 
 Or picture that fierce fight in 1 143, when the 
 Senna Brook ran red with human blood and 
 the baby Duke of Brabant hung in a silver 
 cradle from a willow-tree while his gallant 
 subjects slaughtered and routed the forces of 
 the Lords of Grimberghe. 
 
 And here is another baby story, which 
 belongs to the year 1307. Wasted and hard 
 12 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 pressed by Kaiser Albrecht, the Landgrave 
 Friedrich was compelled to fly from the Castle 
 of Wartburg — that famous fortress within 
 whose walls, two hundred years later, Luther 
 found his Patmos. Through the valley of the 
 Neckar, with his wife and their infant daughter 
 by his side, the huge-limbed Landgrave rode 
 among his knights and men-at-arms, well 
 aware that the Kaiser's troops were following 
 hotfoot on their track. 
 
 Through all the first hour of their flight the 
 child's fretful wail was heard above the clatter 
 of hoofs and the clank of armour, till the 
 colossal Landgrave could no longer endure it. 
 
 ** What ails the poor little mortal ? " he asked 
 as they hurried onward. 
 
 ** Alas ! she is crying because she is hungry," 
 answered the Landgravine, ''and I fear she 
 won't be quiet till she is suckled." 
 
 " Then suckled she shall be," exclaimed the 
 giant, '* if I lose all Thuringia for it. Halt !" 
 
 In a green wooded hollow he drew up his 
 men to be ready to meet any attack, and bade 
 them be silent, while the child lay nestling at 
 its mother's breast. Knight and man-at-arms 
 stood mute but light-hearted, thinking of the 
 baby and Hstening for the hoof-beats of their 
 13 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 pursuers. But the green boughs hid the 
 fugitives, and the Kaiser's troops swerved away 
 from their traces and thundered off into space. 
 
 It is sorrowful to reflect that these incidents 
 are typical of but one aspect of the mediaeval 
 Child legend. The other was based on the 
 hideous dogma that until baptism had been 
 administered the new-born babe was not a 
 child of divine love, but a child of perdition. 
 Of such was the kingdom of heaven — in no 
 wise. In the Vision of Frate Alberico — the 
 vision of a lad of ten years — one is shown the 
 ^* place filled with red-hot burning cinders and 
 boiling vapour, in which little children were 
 purged " — poor helpless sinners no more than 
 twelve months old. Human nature rebelled 
 against this detestable theology ; but even when 
 at length the souls of the unbaptized innocents 
 were rescued from the unquenchable fires and 
 consigned to a ** sorrow without torment," their 
 limbo was still a region on the verge of 
 ** the abysmal valley dolorous." The Beatific 
 Vision was denied to them whose angels do 
 always behold the face of the Father which is 
 in heaven. 
 
 Happily, we have in a great measure emerged 
 from the shadow of that beHef, though some 
 14 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 traces of it still survive in the minds of good 
 men and good women, who continue to think that 
 children are '^ born bad." But for how many 
 centuries it must have darkened the lives of 
 parents and children of Christendom. Indeed, 
 it seems to me to be ultimately the real ex-, 
 planation of the blindness and perversity which 
 characterised, even within living memory, the 
 conception of a child^s education. How other- 
 wise can we account for the fact that in the 
 early years of this century men and women 
 seem to have lost all recollection that they too 
 were once children ; that it never occurred to 
 them to regard a child as a small human being 
 living in a half real, half imaginary world of 
 its own ; that they never discovered that love 
 and beauty are a child's Guardian Angels, and 
 that the golden bridge between the world of 
 childhood and the world of maturity is a sym- 
 pathetic imagination ; that it never suggested 
 itself to fathers and mothers that nine-tenths 
 of a child's fractiousness and naughtiness spring 
 from physical conditions, and that a merry 
 laugh, a cheery word, a quarter of an hour of 
 fresh air, are surer and saner remedies than 
 slap or strap ? 
 
 Any one who reads of the unhappy child- 
 15 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 hood so frequently recorded of those evil days, 
 when babes and sucklings were doomed and • 
 unregenerate creatures, the wicked days when 
 ** tempers were broken," and poor shivering little 
 souls, with the bloom of Paradise still rosy on 
 their faces, were scourged into obedience and 
 rectitude, and contrasts the stupidity of that time 
 with the humane temper of our own, cannot 
 well avoid conjecturing as to the cause of the 
 change. It is not to be supposed that any 
 living father or mother loves a child more 
 devotedly to-day than our grand-parents and 
 great-grand-parents loved their boys and girls ; 
 nor can it be doubted that they were as good 
 and as well-meaning as any of their descendants. 
 Yet how one's heart quickens and one's blood 
 boils as one reads of the ** discipline " which 
 - even religious people considered it their duty 
 to inflict on the children of their love. No 
 doubt the growth of education and the broaden- 
 ing of intellectual sympathies have enabled us 
 to regard childhood and the problem of child- 
 training from a wiser point of view ; and it 
 may be that art, poetry, and fiction have aided 
 our too accustomed eyes to recognise the 
 sweetness and beauty of child-Hfe and to ponder 
 over its mysteries ; but more than to any other 
 
 i6 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 single influence we must ascribe our change of 
 views regarding the Baba log and our own 
 dealings with them to the greater stress 
 which has been laid in our own generation on 
 the fatherhood of God and the sonship of man. 
 The wise teaching of Richter and the tender 
 humanity of Froebel have come to us at a 
 moment when we are best fitted to understand 
 and appreciate them. 
 
 Thrice happy child of to-day ! Thy star 
 glitters over the roof, and thou art born into a 
 believing generation. We cherish the old 
 legends which tell how the brute stones and 
 wild waters and the winds of heaven are in 
 league with thee ; and how all woodland things, 
 from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on 
 the wall, from the bees that gave thee honey to 
 the grey wolf that gave thee milk, are pledged 
 to guard thee from wrong. We sing again 
 the old cradle-songs of many lands, to bribe 
 thee to sleep with promises of golden cradles 
 and foreign towns and churches, and we guide 
 thy little feet through the movements of the 
 quaint singing-games of a time gone by. The 
 poets have made thee the theme of their inspi- 
 ration ; the novelists are exploiting thee and 
 thy sweetness and grave benignity ; the educa- 
 17 B 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 tional statisticians are weighing and measuring 
 thee, and recording thy ways and thy words in 
 learned books. 
 
 To any one who has made acquaintance with 
 the Baba logy unless indeed he be a curmud- 
 geon, none of these things seem strange. 
 Even as the merest babes they are imposing 
 creatures. " There is something gigantic 
 about them," wrote Tennyson with true obser- 
 vation. **The wide-eyed wonder of a babe 
 has a grandeur in it which as children they 
 *'ose. They seem to me to be prophets of a 
 mightier race." 
 
 One of the strangest things in life, a mother 
 will tell you, is what she calls the transparent 
 veil that interposes between her and her babe, 
 and renders the small immortal as inaccessible 
 as Sirius. Occasionally there is a look of grave 
 omniscience in its great tranquil eyes, which 
 thrills her with an eerie apprehension of invi- 
 sible witnesses. The tender and playful touch 
 of its soft hands restores the comfortable 
 feehng of its simple humanity. Then sud- 
 denly she becomes conscious that it is almost 
 as much animal as human — that it is beyond 
 human appeal, human reasoning, human com- 
 prehension. How she waits and watches for 
 
 i8 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 that veil to be drawn aside ! But it is never 
 drawn aside. It breaks slowly thread by 
 thread, dissolves as it were in an unaccount- 
 able way, and some day the last film disap- 
 pears, and she finds with joy that the babe is 
 neither angel, changeling, nor elemental crea- 
 ture, but a responsive child of sweet and whole- 
 some flesh and blood. 
 
 Meanwhile the pigmy has been philo- 
 sophically taking stock of the colossal world 
 which is still a part of himself ; drinking in hght 
 and colour and sound ; making the acquaint- 
 ance of that startHng phenomenon, his own 
 foot ; discovering with surprise, not free from 
 apprehension, that a certain podgy fist which 
 bangs him occasionally is in reality an erratic 
 prolongation — or possibly a colony — of his 
 own personality. Out of his experiences he 
 rapidly constructs a provisional standard of 
 comparison and a scheme of the universe. 
 
 One wonders whether the physiologist will 
 some day discover that there is a physical 
 something in the unworn freshness and 
 purity of a child's senses to account for the 
 . '* dream-like vividness and splendour,'' which, 
 as Wordsworth noted, invests the objects of 
 vision in our early years, to explain that 
 19 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 curious hearing '*in colours" referred to by 
 Professor Sully, and to assist us in under- 
 standing the child^s remarkable faculty for 
 vitalising and personifying all that strikes on his 
 perception. It has perplexed me exceedingly 
 to reconcile, in the case of a little fellow of 
 three and a half, his slowness to perceive 
 something I point out to him with my stick, 
 and the wonderful acuteness with which he has 
 observed a thousand details about trains and 
 engines — things which are his delight by day 
 and his dream by night, but which scare him 
 beyond words if he chances to come within 
 fifty yards of them. 
 
 The Httle pilgrim of the dawn has now the 
 freedom of what Professor Sully calls *'the 
 realm of fancy." In his active brain he has a 
 magic wand which makes him master of 
 creation. He fills the blank spaces between 
 the zenith and the nadir with his imaginings ; 
 makes the woods fearful with wolves, discovers 
 the haunts of fairies and tree-folk in holes 
 under the tree roots, and associates the church, 
 the barn, the lane, the brook, the gate, with 
 the people and places of his story-books. 
 
 This realm is not only the land of fancy, but 
 that of fetich. To one little fellow, born in 
 
 20 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 Siberia, the great god Pan was a reality. At 
 night he would say, '* Bye-bye, Poo-ah 1 " — 
 '*Good night, Out-of-doors!" Another went 
 in mortal dread of a feather from the eider- 
 down, or a fluff of the wool in which a banana 
 had been packed, and he would flee with a yell 
 when it moved towards him on a breath of air. 
 Boy Beloved had an unspeakable horror of an 
 indiarubber hot-water bottle, but if he had to 
 pass near it, he would propitiate it with ** Nice 
 water-bottle!*^ and, watching it carefully, sidle 
 out of danger. 
 
 In this realm of fancy a child^s quaint and 
 pretty sayings, his flashes of natural poetry, 
 appear almost inevitable. He is continually 
 checking off likenesses; he understands through 
 similitudes. Spectacles could hardly fail to 
 become '^ little windows" ; a quivering compass- 
 needle ^* a bird " ; a butterfly a '* flying pansy.*» 
 ** Oh, making mud-pies ! " cried a Httle maid 
 gleefully, when she saw some nursery gardeners 
 hard at work ; and ^^ Want a drink of meolk ! " 
 when a waggoner drew up at the horse-trough. 
 Boy Beloved had seen his mother's thread 
 ravel, and when he could not pull open the 
 cupboard door, stamped his foot and roared, 
 ** In a knot, in a knot!" 
 
 21 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 Imitation is one of the ways of checking 
 likenesses. Sometimes one is apt to punish 
 for disobedience — and all because one did not 
 understand that some little man was a horse, 
 and not a responsible human boy. One morn- 
 ing from my window I saw Boy Beloved 
 standing on one leg, with the other doubled up 
 close to his body and his arms half extended 
 in a curve. The attitude was a puzzle till I 
 noticed the fowl in front of him, and then it 
 was evident that he was '^ playing at poultry." 
 More curious still was his explanation of a 
 long howl of his, which brought us to see what 
 had happened. He laughed a droll little laugh 
 and said, *' I thought I was a puff-pufF" — and 
 the whoop was his notion of a steam-whistle. 
 
 One of the most interesting things in watch- 
 ing a child's play is the knowledge one acquires 
 of the sharpness and detailed accuracy of its 
 observation. A small '' shop-lady " will consult 
 the (invisible) ticket before she quotes you the 
 price of her goods, and if by some negligence 
 it has not been pinned on, she will refer the 
 matter to the gentleman called ''Sign." If 
 you ride in an imaginary tram-car with Boy 
 Beloved as conductor, he will say ''PHng!" 
 the sound of the bell-punch) before he gives 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 you an imaginary ticket and takes an imaginary 
 fare. 
 
 And with what ease and dramatic vraisem- 
 blance the mimics throw themselves into a 
 situation ! Promenading round the garden, in 
 old days, with her doll, W. V. exclaimed, 
 ^^Look, baby; there's pappa ! " — then, in a 
 hurried aside, '* Wave your hand, father ! " 
 **Ta-ta!" I said to nurse once, as she took 
 Boy Beloved downstairs ; ^* write when you get 
 there ! " '' Wouldn't it be funny," cried W. V., 
 **if nurse wrote a letter for him : 
 * Dear Pappa, 
 
 • Dot dere, 
 
 Baby ' " 
 
 Wonderful are the ways of a girl with her 
 doll. '^ I am an anxious-minded doll-mother," 
 observed a true make-believer, as on a windy 
 night she gave up her eider-down to her 
 favourite and ''tucked her in" with tender 
 solicitude. 
 
 The doll is one of the best teachers of a 
 child, and it is one of the happy chances of 
 language that the very name "dolly" carries 
 us back to St. Dorothea (God's gift) and her 
 beautiful rose-legend. *' Dorothy," writes Miss 
 Yonge, in her ** History of Christian Names," 
 23 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 "was once one of the most usual of English 
 names, and 'Dolly' was so constantly heard 
 in every household that it finally became the 
 generic term for the wooden children that at 
 least as late as the infancy of Elizabeth Stuart 
 were called babies or puppets." And this God's 
 gift to girlhood has many things to teach 
 mothers if they will but watch and try to 
 understand what they see. 
 
 Professor Sully is of opinion that the perfect 
 child's faith in dolldom passes away early ; in 
 most cases, it would appear, about the age of 
 thirteen or fourteen. It is then that the young 
 people begin to realise the shocking fact that 
 dolls have no *' inner life.'' I should have 
 imagined that the sincerity of simple faith 
 died out long before the age of fourteen. 
 Judging from a conversation with W. V. when 
 she was a serious matron of seven and dolly 
 lay listening in her arms, the perfect faith 
 sometimes does not outlast half that age. 
 
 '' Does your little girl talk ? " 
 
 '' Oh no." 
 
 " How is that ? " 
 
 *^Why, she's only a little baby — three 
 months." 
 
 " I see. And when will she talk ? " 
 24 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 " I should think when she's five years old ; 
 perhaps when she's four." 
 
 **Are you fond of her?" 
 
 She cuddles the doll and smiles radiantly. 
 
 ** Do you think she is fond of you ? Is 
 she as fond of you as Guy-boy is of his 
 mother ? " 
 
 *^Guy is a real baby — a live doll," with 
 a laugh; ''this one isn't — I pretend she is. 
 She will never be able to really talk, you 
 know." 
 
 *^ What is the good of pretending?" 
 
 *'You have to pretend — unless you have 
 one of those dolls that speak when you pull 
 a string." 
 
 " But what pleasure have you in pretending?" 
 
 **It is nearly as nice to pretend — when you 
 can't have a real live baby." 
 
 And the art of pretending cuts Gordian 
 knots with such a deft facihty. *' These spoons 
 are too big for the toy tea-set," says Olive. 
 '^ Oh, let's pretend they are , little," rejoins 
 Giggi — and that mountain is cast into the sea ; 
 to have made it a mountain at all was '^perferly 
 'idickerlus ! " But if you think that a make- 
 believer cannot be strictly accurate and un- 
 compromising when he likes, you are mistaken. 
 25 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 Giggi's mamma was telling sympathetically 
 how he had slipped, and '' sat down suddenly," 
 and hurt his back. '^ That isn't my back, 
 V mamma," interposed Giggi ; "that's where my 
 legs live ! " And if you suppose that an 
 anxious-minded doll-mother is not keenly alive 
 to the difference between the credible and the 
 incredible, you will find that your figures come 
 out wrong. '^ Of course Bunyan says, ' And 
 I dreamed a dream ' ; but it would take three 
 or four dreams to make a whole book. He 
 must have made up some of it, father, when he 
 was awake I " 
 
 Yet it is in this same region of make-believe, 
 I suppose, that we must place that bewildering 
 habit of so many children, of playing with 
 imaginary companions. An instance is given 
 in the Sayings which follow, but, from a con- 
 siderable number of letters which I have 
 received on the subject, I am forced to believe 
 that it is an experience by no means uncommon 
 in child fife. But this is a topic which I must 
 treat as the Highland divine treated " a great 
 speeritooal difFeeculty " — look it boldly in the 
 face and pass on. 
 
 When does the first flash of self-conscious- 
 ness occur in a child's experience — the first 
 26 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 clear realisation that he is he^ something quite 
 distinct from the rest of creation ? 
 
 As might be expected, it is not easy to 
 collect information on this obscure but singularly 
 interesting subject. So far I have only come 
 across two instances. In his Letters James 
 Smetham writes : *^ My first awakening to 
 consciousness, as far as I can remember, was 
 in a valley in Yorkshire, outside the garden- 
 gate of my father's house, when at the age of 
 two. I have a distinct remembrance of the 
 ecstasy with which I regarded the distant blue- 
 ness of the hills, and saw" the laurels shake in 
 the wind and felt it lift my hair." Mary Howitt, 
 in her Autobiography, makes a similar state- 
 ment, but unfortunately she leaves the reader 
 to conjecture her age as between three and 
 four years : ^' Then I recollect a curious little 
 epoch in my life, as we were returning one 
 evening from a forest ramble with my father. 
 It was the first evidence to my mind that I 
 could think. I remember very well the new 
 light, the gladness, the wealth of which I 
 seemed suddenly possessed. It has curiously 
 connected itself in my mind with passing a 
 pinfold. That particular spot seemed like the 
 line between rational and irrational existence ; 
 27 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 and so childish was I in intellectual life, that 
 it seemed to me as if before I passed the 
 pinfold I could only say and think * Bungam * — 
 such was the expression in my mind — but that 
 after passing it I had the full use of all 
 intelligible speech." 
 
 Very few persons seem to recollect that 
 first flash of revelation, and indeed the habit 
 of humanising everything he sees is so in- 
 veterate in a child that it is easy to conceive 
 that, in spite of the revelation, the original 
 vague dream-life with its magical illusions may 
 continue for years. There is more than make- 
 believe in what I may call the anthropo- 
 morphism of childhood; there is an unreasoning 
 but very positive belief that everything is 
 alive, and in precisely the same way as the 
 observer. One day Boy Beloved knocked his 
 head against the bannister. After crying and 
 receiving the usual remedial kissing, he went 
 and laid his head against the bannister, so 
 that tt too might '' kiss the place better." 
 Naturally enough, for when any of us had 
 hurt him, had not we kissed the spot ? And 
 surely this was an improvement on the ancient 
 tradition of retaliation — the mistaken beating of 
 the bannister. 
 
 28 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 So, too, one morning, sitting up in bed with 
 his bricks and toys, he called to the gas : 
 ** Ower here, gas ! Come, build for Guy ; play 
 cricket for Guy, gas ! " It was not till his 
 mother had made the gas say No in a far- 
 away tone that he reconciled himself to a 
 solitary game. On another occasion, after 
 '* picnicking " quietly for a long while in the 
 shadowy woods under the dining-room table 
 with his horse and engine, he brought out the 
 latter with the request, ^* Kiss this old train, 
 pappa," for he is the most affectionate of little 
 mortals, and will in the most unaccountable 
 . way climb a couple of flights of stairs to 
 " kiss your nice hand,*' or even your sleeve or 
 dress. If the humour takes him to play at 
 buying something in the woods, he will 
 convert an oak or a birch into a shopkeeper, 
 and you can see his lips moving as he describes 
 what he wants and makes his purchase. 
 
 One of the most interesting incidents, how- 
 ever, occurred when his wooden engine fell 
 down. He picked it up, kissed it, and said 
 cheerily, ''All better now; don't cry, puff- 
 puff ! Be a brick ! " — and added in a low 
 voice to himself, ** He's going to be a brick." 
 And the other evening, on going to bed, his 
 29 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 attention was caught by the brightness of the 
 sunset. '^The daylight has forgotten to go 
 away. Tell him to go, pappa ! " After a while : 
 '* Has he gone ? " ** Not yet, dear; he is just 
 waiting to see his sister before he goes." 
 ** His sister ! Has he a sister ? " *' Yes ; she 
 is called Starlight : when he sees her, he will 
 say good-bye and go away ! " " Oh ! " That 
 seemed new, but quite natural and reasonable ; 
 so he lay down quietly, with that ready 
 acquiescence which is a child's predisposition 
 to obedience. 
 
 Curiously related to this dream-life, and to 
 the sudden awakening from it, is the way in 
 which a child's occasional consciousness of the 
 unreality of its dreams affects its confidence in 
 the reality of its perceptions while awake. 
 Professor Sully, who has recorded so many 
 delightful and significant observations of child 
 life, mentions a boy of five who asked his 
 teacher, ''Wouldn't it be funny if we were 
 dreaming ? Supposing every one in the whole 
 world were dreaming, wouldn't that be funny ? 
 They might be, mightn't they ? " The strange 
 thing is that this sense of the illusiveness 
 of the world is not confined to childhood. 
 Wordsworth told Professor Bonamy Price that 
 30 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 there was a time in his life when he had to 
 push against something that resisted, to be 
 sure that there was anything outside of him. 
 *' I was sure of my own mind ; everything else 
 fell away and vanished into thought.'' And 
 these strange *' fallings from us " and ** vanish- 
 ings " come within the experience of Tenny- 
 son, just as Wordsworth '*used to brood over 
 the stories of Enoch and Elijah, and almost to 
 persuade himself that, whatever might become 
 of others, he would be translated, in something 
 of the same way, to heaven," so Tennyson 
 had moments in which^ at one time, **he felt he 
 could not die," and at another 
 
 seem'd to move among a world of ghosts, 
 And feel himself the shadow of a dream. 
 
 And a yet more striking coincidence may be 
 found in Newman's '* Apologia " : *^ I thought 
 life might be a dream, or I an angel, and all 
 this world a deception, my fellow-angels by a 
 playful device concealing themselves from me, 
 and deceiving me with the semblance of a 
 
 material world." 
 
 Every now and again one is startled by 
 
 some preternaturally wise or beautiful saying 
 
 from the lips of a child, which seems to justify 
 
 the poet's thought that 
 31 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 And Cometh from afar. 
 
 What could be more like a sweet and clear 
 echo from the '^Fioretti" than the words of 
 the little boy who, as Professor Sully tells us, 
 remarked to his mother that if he could say 
 what he liked to God, it would be, ** Love me 
 when I am naughty " ; or the lovel}^ saying of 
 a little girl to her mother, who was weeping 
 for a beloved one : " Why do you cry ? It is 
 only that he has woken up and we are still 
 asleep." 
 
 *' Such sayings are not unwholesome or pre- 
 cocious," observes the writer of a notable 
 article in 77?^ Pilot* from which I have quoted 
 the last incident : the priggish, mawkish, 
 unwholesome sayings are of a very different 
 character, and have a deplorably sancti- 
 monious ring about them. ^' We are having 
 quite a theollojun for our son 1 " remarked a 
 little girl of her four-year-old brother when he 
 hazarded some comment on the divine inten- 
 tion in the making of trees. And indeed in 
 children the theologian is often born a twin 
 
 * '• Some Reflections on Childhood." The Pilot, Sept.8, 
 1900. 
 
 32 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 brother of the poet. How can the busy brains 
 help speculating on the God who is the Father 
 they pray to, the heaven which is His 
 dwelling-place, the angels who watch unseen 
 around their cribs ? It would be unnatural 
 indeed if they did not try to find convenient 
 places for these invisible spirits in their small 
 world, just as certain tropical birds contrive 
 means for lighting their nests with fireflies. 
 
 The childish speculator is logical, free- 
 spoken, and bold to audacity, but he is never 
 irreverent. He listens greedily, and his reten- 
 tive memory stores away unintelligible talk for 
 future deliberation. He is prone to put awk- 
 ward questions, and in our stupidity and 
 impatience, or, it may be, in our dread of 
 indulging a spirit of curious levity, we are apt 
 to impose silence somewhat brusquely on the 
 eager inquirer. This is a miserable mistake, 
 especially if we insist at the same time on 
 giving religious instruction regarding truths 
 which it would frequently be much wiser to 
 leave for maturer years. If we teach, we must 
 be prepared to listen to many theological 
 difficulties, to the oddest conjectures, and the 
 most amazing assimilations of ideas only half 
 understood. '* What do they do in heaven ? 
 33 c 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 That puzzles me sometimes/' said one little 
 girl. '' Why does Jesus take little babies up 
 into heaven again ? Does He send them 
 down to any one else ? " '^ Does God like us 
 to show our moons " (the white crescents at 
 the root of the nails, from which a child should 
 always press back the skin when drying her 
 hands) ? But most surprising of all was the 
 account of how God once went to Hades — to 
 visit there, and she might perhaps have gone 
 with Him. (She might have been eight years 
 old, in heaven, before she came here ; but she 
 did not know.) He went because He wanted 
 to know what it was like. Of course, He made 
 Hades, but He didn't know what it was like ; 
 He had workmen to make it for Him, no doubt. 
 He took all those in heaven down with Him — 
 babies and all. Alongside of her unhesitating 
 speculativeness ran a grave sense of decorum : 
 '' Of course it isn't proper to laugh when you 
 are saying your prayers. You would behave 
 if you went to see the Queen ; and God is 
 greater ; " and a perfectly clear sense of right 
 and wrong : '^ Don't you feel reckless some- 
 times, mother ? — as if you wanted to disobey 
 the laws of God ! " and a truer conception of 
 the divine compassion, I trust, than is to be 
 34 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 found in some human creeds, for she had been 
 reading about what she called " Top-het/' and 
 after asking whether '^ that pit of darkness and 
 fire " were one with Hades, observed : '^ There 
 must be only very few people in Tophet ; only 
 those, I should think, who won^t be sorry for 
 what they have done." Singularly enough, 
 too, even the moral of a story is apprehended 
 in a way that would astonish many novel- 
 readers. ^'Oh no, I can^t be Theseus,'' ex- 
 claimed the same child, when it was a question 
 of playing at ^' The Heroes." It was not 
 because she was a girl — that never presented 
 any difficulty : ** I wouldn't be These'us for 
 anything, for, after all his great deeds, there is 
 a chapter which says ^ How Theseus fell by 
 his pride ' " 1 
 
 Who will enable us to form an adequate 
 conception of what a child thinks about those 
 ^'lesser brethren " in feathers and fur which 
 we are pleased to call the brute creation ? In 
 this respect, as in so many others, there are 
 two very different sides to a child's nature — its 
 confidence in animals and its dread of them. 
 The little man or little woman appears to 
 trust the four-footed much more readily than 
 the feathered bipeds. Why, it would be 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 exceedingly difficult to saj-, unless we catch at 
 the notion that in an early stage of their 
 existence our own immortals were also small 
 quadrupeds. One small person I knew — almost 
 two years of age — was for some time thrown 
 into absolute panic by the sparrows in the 
 garden. It was ludicrous beyond belief to 
 see her when a bird dropped down on the 
 grass anyway near her. She would stamp, 
 and scream *' No, No ! " — and when the 
 handful of feathers would not be driven off 
 she would scuttle headlong into the house with 
 a yell for *^ Mamma! " Yet this singular little 
 coward would blow kisses to a donkey of her 
 acquaintance, and when she had a chance 
 would bustle up fearlessly to a dog-kennel 
 and imperiously summon the chained tenant, 
 ^^ Come out; donnie [doggie] ; naughty donnie ! '' 
 And who has not seen village babes, for whom 
 cattle had no terrors, kept at bay by a couple 
 of formidable geese on the common — geese ? 
 nay, fiery dragons hissing and red with ravin. 
 Yet, when there is confidence between them, 
 what can be more winning than the child's 
 half-shy advances towards a speaking acquain- 
 tance ; and, on the other hand, what more 
 beautiful — pathetic almost in its wistfulness — 
 36 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 than the response made by many dumb crea- 
 tures ? Even a cat, devoid as it so frequently 
 appears to be of any attachment to persons, 
 will allow itself to be turned all but inside 
 out by infantine hands. It may be hfted 
 by the tail with impunity, or utilised as a 
 cushion, with the inevitable result that the 
 baba fresh from Paradise acquires appalling 
 possibilities of cruelty. With the big dog it 
 is not quite the same. Devoted as is his sub- 
 servience, tender as is his care, long-suffering 
 and parentally tolerant as he is, there is a 
 strong placid look in the creature's human 
 eyes that distinctly indicates the line beyond 
 which the angehc little savage must not go. 
 Occasionally one has a pleasant glimpse of 
 the friendly offices which a child wishes to 
 exercise when relations appear to become a 
 trifle strained among playmates. ** Pussy and 
 the jackdaw are such lovely companions," 
 W. V. confided to me on her return from a 
 visit. '^ Pussy never runs at him, except when 
 he is on the ground. She can't help it then ; 
 can she, father ? But he's all right when he's 
 up a tree. I'll tell Paul she can't really help 
 it." 
 
 In one of his books Michelet draws arj 
 37 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 exquisite picture of the destiny of the animal, 
 *' that sombre mystery, that world of dreams 
 and dumb sorrows," through the long ages, 
 and of his redemption through the little Child. 
 In a remote antiquity the East conceived the 
 idea, to which it still adheres, that the animal 
 is a soul enchanted and cast into deep sleep, a 
 prisoner on the night-side of nature. In the 
 Middle Ages the people returned to that belief 
 in spite of the dogmas of the early theologians, 
 who had argued, some that the brute creation 
 had no souls and so were beyond the pale of 
 our sympathy and compassion ; others that 
 they must have souls — seeing that they were 
 devils ! It was the Child who, for a time at 
 least, raised these 'Mower brethren" from 
 this degraded bondage and oppression. 
 
 The tiny mortal — himself under a spiritual 
 ban — had no fear of these supposed incarna- 
 tions of evil. He played with them ; he made 
 them his friends and confidants, and in turn 
 they loved him and grew docile to his will. 
 The grown-up people saw that nothing dis- 
 astrous came of this familiar intercourse. On 
 the contrary, they discovered a curious 
 similarity between their own little ones and 
 these dumb playmates. The animal became 
 38 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 one of the family. It was treated as a poor 
 relation ; it shared the joys of high feast-days, 
 and went into mourning in time of bereave- 
 ment. At last it was even admitted to church 
 on Christmas Day, and had its anthems, half 
 in ecclesiastical Latin and half in the popular 
 speech. Then sprang up the lovely mediaeval 
 legends, in which animals were not only 
 recognised as God's creatures, but as the 
 humble and helpful companions of man. 
 By solitary waters and among the rocks 
 of the mountain forest, bird or beast glad- 
 dened the rude home of many a saintly 
 anchorite. 
 
 This golden age of reparation did not long 
 endure. Popes and councils barred the church 
 doors; philosophers and casuists decided that 
 the animal had no soul, no God, no compensa- 
 tion for toil and suffering and cruelty; httle 
 solace in this world and no hope for the next. 
 Still, a beginning had been made ; pity for the 
 brute had been born into the world of the West, 
 and from it have sprung our abhorrence of the 
 wanton infliction of pain and our recognition 
 that the brute has its rights. Even the theo- 
 logian, when he now approaches the subject of 
 the life and destiny of animals, does so in a 
 39 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 spirit of wonder and humility which contrasts 
 in a striking manner with the unfeehng and 
 short-sighted assurance of his antique pre- 
 decessors, " It is indeed," writes Newman, 
 '^ a very overpowering thought, when we get to 
 fix our minds on it, that we periodically use — 
 I may say hold intercourse with — creatures 
 who are as much strangers to us, as mysterious, 
 ar if they were the fabulous unearthly beings, 
 more powerful than man and yet his slaves, 
 which Eastern superstitions have invented. 
 We have more real knowledge about the angels 
 than about the brutes ; they have, apparently, 
 passions, habits, and a certain unaccountable- 
 ness, but all is mystery about them. We do 
 not know whether they can sin or not, whether 
 they are under punishment, whether they are 
 to live after this life; we inflict very great 
 sufferings on a portion of them, and they in 
 turn, every now and then, retaliate upon us, as 
 if by a wonderful law. . . . Cast your thoughts 
 abroad on the whole number of them, large 
 and small, in vast forests, or in the water, or in 
 blue air, and then say whether the presence of 
 such countless multitudes, so various in their 
 natures, so strange and wild in their shapes, 
 living on the earth without ascertainable object, 
 40 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 is not as mysterious as anything Scripture says 
 about the angels." 
 
 The time, it is to be hoped, is not far distant 
 when no creature will fear man, and when it 
 will be considered shameful that a child should 
 be frightened into that senseless dread of 
 animals which so often prompts to hostility 
 and cruelty. 
 
 There is a trait in childhood which is too 
 often taken for granted as universal and in- 
 variable — that of demonstrative affection. So 
 far as my observation goes, one is more struck 
 by the gay thoughtlessness, the happy indiffer- 
 ence of the Baba logy than by their tenderness. 
 Doubtless there are numerous exceptions, but 
 in the main children seem to be somewhat 
 impatient of caresses and not too spontaneous 
 in their endearments. Nature is a wise mother 
 in this as in other things, and it is prudent in 
 fathers and mothers to refrain from too frequent 
 interference. But how delightful it is when a 
 manly little fellow of two or three lets you see 
 how his joyous heart — his whole ''eatable" 
 body, indeed — is sparkling and bubbling over 
 with his afifection for you. It was one of Boy 
 Beloved's charming ways to come, with his 
 open hands placed side by side in front of 
 41 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 his breast, and to dance as he uttered his 
 cooing yearning cry, ^^ Oooo, mamma ! '* '* Nice 
 hand ! " he would say later, taking it in both 
 of his own and pressing it to his face, to his 
 neck, to his breast ; " other hand too ! " In- 
 deed, there never was such a hand-olater. 
 Suddenly, as you are walking along with 
 his fingers crumpled up in your palm, he 
 will bend aside till his lips rest on your poor 
 worshipful knuckles. Sometimes he will leave 
 his " chattels," as he calls them, and come with 
 the petition, *' Let me kiss you a little, mamma I 
 Let us love ourselves " ; then it is '* Thank 
 you ! " — and he trots off to his incessant toil 
 as porter, station-master, engine-driver (and 
 engine, too, so far as the whistling goes), for 
 his motto is Nulla dies sine lined — no day with- 
 out a (railway) line. When he is full of gleeful 
 mischief, and you foolishly say, ** Won't you 
 give me a kiss ? " he may reply with a giggle, 
 *^They are not ripe yet 1 " and it is just as well 
 that you should learn to let your apples redden 
 on the tree. 
 
 At night a certain farewell duologue has been 
 nearly invariable for two years : 
 
 " See you in the morning, mamma ! " 
 
 **A11 right, dear." 
 
 42 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 Da capo several times. 
 
 "All right, my sweet ! " 
 
 "Am I your sweet, reall}^ ? " 
 
 Or, after kissing of hands, back and palm, 
 kissing of cheek, forehead, and hair, it is : 
 
 "I like you, pappa ! " 
 
 " And I Hke you ! " 
 
 " Do you Hke me ? " 
 
 " Yes, dear.'^ 
 
 " And I like you ; you are so nice, you are 
 so sweet, you are so very lovely ! " 
 
 "So are you ! " 
 
 " So are you ! I like you, and I love you ! " 
 
 "And I love you. Go to sleep now, like a 
 good boy." 
 
 In a deep voice, and with a sigh of satis- 
 faction : "Yes, I will." 
 
 And now I must draw this desultory gossip 
 to a close. I fear I have already exceeded all 
 reasonable limits, but temptation, in introducing 
 this small collection of Children's Sayings, to 
 say something myself of the Venerable Folk, 
 the Baba log^ has proved too strong. Of course 
 I have kept to the sunny, the idyllic side of the 
 subject. Why not ? I know there is another 
 side, but this is a true side ; it is the side 
 43 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 always turned to me, and I am well pleased 
 with it, just as most people are well pleased 
 with the single sunny side of the moon. 
 Wherefore should I go needlessly beyond 
 the luminous disc into the darkness and cold 
 behind ? 
 
 One of the merits of this collection is that 
 all the Sayings have been vouched for as true. 
 They were contributed to the Sunday Magazine ^ 
 in the pages of which, from time to time, most 
 of them have appeared. Here and there I 
 have ventured now to add a comment. The 
 object in publishing them in the present form 
 is nothing more ambitious than the reader's 
 pleasure, though I have no doubt that they 
 may be made to serve an excellent practical 
 purpose beyond pleasure. 
 
 A child's sayings are often a curious and 
 comprehensive commentary on the characters 
 of the unsuspicious persons concerned in their 
 up-bringing. It is not always flattering when 
 some chance phrase it utters enables us to see 
 ourselves as it has evidently been in the habit 
 of seeing us ; and possibly our friends may 
 have sometimes had amusement at our expense 
 in consequence of the twitterings of these tell- 
 tale "birds of the air." Sometimes, too, in its 
 44 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 dramatic moods, a child shows itself more 
 acutely critical of its own character and con- 
 duct than its parents are capable of being. In 
 the character of an imaginary Gladys, Pinafori- 
 fera used to make her own foibles the subject 
 of her kindly sarcasm. Gladys was overpowered 
 by the blessings showered on Pinaforifera : 
 ^* She is so awfully well off; you are so kind to 
 her — and her mother is too. I never had a tea- 
 service when I was a little girl ; and only one 
 doll, which I kept for — I had it when I was 
 two, and I am now fourteen ; how many years 
 was that ? Could P. keep a doll so long ? " 
 
 '' I don't think so.'' 
 
 '' No, I don't think so ; she wants a new one 
 every month." 
 
 As I write I hear the children ginging in the 
 garden : they have come to see '^ poor Jenny 
 Jones, poor Jenny Jones, poor Jenny Jones," 
 and for various ingeniously devised reasons 
 Jenny is not to be seen just now. Did it ever 
 occur to you, as you lay on the warm grass of 
 a summer evening, in how many places in all 
 the sunny shires of England little children 
 were at that moment playing at some old-world 
 singing-game, handed down from generations 
 45 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 long forgotten ? Just picture to yourselves the 
 countless rings and groups of the Baba log, 
 gleefully singing and dancing hand in hand, 
 laughing and shouting, all over the forty coun- 
 ties ; and think that on every village green, on 
 the broad highway, on the strip of common, in 
 the streets of towns, in the slums of crowded 
 cities, there have been children just like these, 
 singing the same songs, acting the same small 
 dramas in practically the same fashion — for 
 children are rigorous conservatives — for cen- 
 turies. Then let your fancy travel over seas 
 and into still remoter times, till at last you 
 come to the market-place of a Syrian town, 
 where the small dark-eyed youngsters have 
 fallen out in their sport, and will neither dance 
 to the marriage pipes nor beat their breasts 
 when they hear the wailing of the mourners. 
 And the one supreme Lover of Children looks 
 on, half amused, half grave, as He sees in their 
 childish caprice and their bickerings the very 
 image of their elders : *' For John came neither 
 eating nor drinking, and they say. He hath a 
 devil. The Son of Man came eating and drink- 
 ing, and they say. Behold a man gluttonous, 
 and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and 
 sinners." 
 
 46 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 One of the most charming characteristics of 
 childhood is, as I have said, its tender- 
 ness and loving-kindness, and in the 
 attempt to group these Sayings I give 
 precedence to this most angelic quality. 
 
 A rosy face, two big grey eyes, a bit of a 
 nose, and a little rosebud of a mouth, a head 
 crowned with a fuzzy crop of sunshiny hair, a 
 blue cotton '* overall," and two firm, shapely 
 little legs. That is Joyce. 
 
 She was only nineteen months old, and as 
 she stood at her mother's knee that mother 
 thought for the hundred-and-first time that 
 there never was such a baby-girl. 
 
 *^ Mother's little lamb ! " she said aloud ten- 
 derly. Joyce wanted to make an appropriate 
 response, and looking up lovingly ansvv^cred : 
 
 '' Baa ! " 
 
 Cyril was seven years old. He loved his 
 mother very dearly, and had been separated 
 from her sometimes, as she had to go to India. 
 
 Once when she came to wish him good- 
 night he was under the bed-clothes. He 
 came out with a flushed httle face, and said as 
 he hugged her tight, ^^ Mummie, do you know 
 what I was doing? I was asking God to love 
 47 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 you as much as 1 do. He couldnH love you 
 more." 
 
 His mother was very dehcate, and one day 
 in winter he said, '^ Oh, father, please shut 
 that window ; mummie may catch cold, and we 
 must take care of our best." 
 
 A loving-hearted wee man said sweetly to 
 his mother, ** Mother, I'm sorry I'm not your 
 father^ for then I would love you so much and 
 take care of you." 
 
 '^ How much do you love mother ? " a little 
 child was asked. " Up to the sky ^ along a bity 
 and down on the other side.'* 
 
 Two little lads of our acquaintance were 
 discussing how much they each loved father 
 and mother. 
 
 The elder said, '* Oh ! I couldn't live without 
 ' muvver ' : if she ever dies, I shall go and dig 
 her up." 
 
 His brother replied, *' Yours is a very 
 stupid plan : when ' farver ' dies, I'm going to 
 have him stuffed ! " 
 
 r 
 
 The story brings to mind an incident in the 
 childhood of Henry Ward Beecher. 
 When his mother died he was too young 
 48 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 to go to her funeral, but he missed her 
 sadly and made many inquiries about her. 
 By some of the family he was told that 
 she had gone to heaven, by others that 
 she had been laid in the ground. Putting 
 both statements together, he formed his 
 own conclusion and determined to act 
 upon it. One morning his sister Catherine 
 looked out and found him digging beneath 
 the window. He lifted his curly head at 
 the sound of her Voice and answered, 
 '* Why, I am going to heaven to find 
 mother." 
 The answer of the second boy recalls the 
 grotesquely pathetic story, given in Bishop 
 — Walsham How's ** Lighter Moments," of 
 the poor man who had just lost his little 
 boy and who was being consoled by a 
 clergyman. The unhappy father burst 
 into tears, and exclaimed in the midst of 
 his sobs, '' If *twarna agin t' law, a 
 ^ should ha' liked to have t' little beggar 
 stoofed." 
 
 *' Oh, my boy, hitting mother ! " exclaimed 
 the recipient of a gentle blow on the shoulder 
 froni the hand of her little son. 
 
 49 D 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 ** Not angry smack — love smack ! '* was the 
 nice distinction given to the action by the little 
 four-year-old. 
 
 '* Not angry smack, love smack I " the 
 meaning, did we know it, of many a childish 
 blow. 
 
 Having lost our dear father, my sister and I, 
 accompanied by two of his little grandsons 
 (aged four and seven respectively), paid our 
 first sad visit to his grave, on leaving which we 
 noticed that the younger boy ran back and 
 deposited something on the slab. When he 
 rejoined us he said, *' I thought poor grandpa 
 might want money, and so I put a halfpenny 
 on his grave." 
 
 Last year, when Hugh was only three years 
 old, he lost his baby sister. He was told that 
 '' gentle Jesus " had taken her. He missed 
 her very much, and seemed to have an idea 
 that she would be coming back again. 
 
 One afternoon while talking to his nurse he 
 said, ''Ray, when 'gentle Jesus' brings my 
 baby sister back again, we will hang up her 
 crown in the hall [the usual place for his garden 
 hat], and I will take her upstairs, and we will 
 50 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 both get into my beddy-bye, and wovit we be 
 happy." 
 
 Little Sidney put his curly golden head 
 down on his dear nurse's knee. He loved 
 nurse *^ so welly mutz," he must pray for her. 
 
 ^' Bless Lizzie," he prays with clasped 
 hands, and then adds with great fervour, 
 '' bless the very chair she's sitting on ! " 
 
 Our dear httle girl said one day, ^^ When I 
 am a big auntie, oo' will be a likkle Marion ; 
 den I'll fasten oo's shoes for oo'." 
 
 - Professor Sully, in his '* Studies of Child- 
 hood," has gathered together several illus- 
 trations of this belief of children that 
 grown-up people will all grow gradually 
 smaller and smaller as they approach their 
 second childhood. '* I cannot learn," he 
 writes, '*that there is any such idea in 
 primitive folk-lore, and this suggests that 
 children find their way to it, in part at 
 least, by the suggestions of older people's 
 words." But I cannot help thinking there 
 must be some trace of this notion in folk- 
 lore, could one but put a finger on it. 
 'Does it not lie at the base of the classic 
 51 
 
^^ 
 
 CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 myth of Tithonus, for whom Aurora 
 obtained the boon of immortality but not 
 that of everlasting youth and its beauty ? 
 As her mortal lover grew old he shrank 
 and dwindled away, till at last, the burden 
 of life being intolerable and the gift of life 
 irrevocable, she turned him into a grass- 
 hopper. 
 
 Our children often amuse us with their odd 
 and pretty sayings. The other day our little 
 boy was asked by a young lady to kiss her ; he 
 did so quietly, and said, '* Wait a little, and 1 
 will give you one with more music in it." 
 
 Another child who heard for the first time the 
 story of Elijah's translation in the fiery chariot 
 began to weep bitterly. His mother said, 
 " What are you crying for, Willie ? " '' 'Cos 
 Tse fear'd 'Lijah will be burned," was the 
 unexpected answer. 
 
 A mother was trying to hush her restless 
 baby to sleep. Little four-year-old Neil had 
 toothache, and claimed attention too. 
 
 ''Oh, do not disturb baby," pleaded the 
 mother. 
 
 Neil dried his tears, and with a look of 
 52 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 dignified reproach said, " Well, mother, I for- 
 give you, but if you had been my little boy, I 
 would have said, 'Come to my arms, my 
 darling son I ' " 
 
 A little boy of a very sensitive disposition, 
 bewailing a childish disappointment, declared, 
 '* My wee heart is broken ! " 
 
 Hugh is a little boy just over four years of 
 age, and a veritable piece of human sunshine. 
 One day his mother was preparing him for his 
 morning nap, when he. turned and said to her, 
 '* I don't love you, mother, I don't." 
 
 " Oh, sonnie, what was the text you learnt 
 this morning ? " 
 
 A bright look came over his face, and he 
 repeated slowly, '^ Be ye kind one to another." 
 
 The mother then enlarged upon the meaning 
 of the words. 
 
 Presently he was in his cot, still wearing his 
 socks for fear his feet should get cold. How- 
 ever, he objected to them, but was told that if 
 he wanted them off he must take them off 
 himself. He struggled with them for some 
 time, but his feet were hot and the socks were 
 tight. At last, half laughing and half crying, 
 53 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 he looked up in his mother's face and said, 
 '* Be ye kind one to another." 
 
 When taking my family round the city to 
 see the Jubilee illuminations, we stood in front 
 of a building bedecked with coloured lights. 
 All my efforts to draw the attention of Charles 
 Willie — three years last March — to them were 
 in vain. After the lapse of a few minutes, 
 pointing to a man a short distance off, who I 
 noticed had lost one of his legs, he asked : 
 *' How does that poor man sit down^ father ? " 
 His sympathies were so touched that the illumi- 
 nations seemed to have no charm for him. 
 
 Closely alHed to the child's tenderness to- 
 wards its own kind is its affection for 
 other living things, though it would not 
 always be easy to say where the line should 
 be drawn between 'Miving things" and 
 things not alive. 
 
 " Oh, Gippie," said three-year-old Isobel, 
 hugging her dog in an agony of tears and 
 sobs, " I'm so sorry for you, darling Gippie, 
 because you've got no soul." Then, suddenly 
 brightening up, though still sobbing, ^^ But 
 never mind, Gippie dear, because, though 
 54 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 youVe no soul, youVe a spirit; and father 
 says youVe a great spirit." 
 
 A little dog was trembling with fear at the 
 high wind, and Percy put his arms round it, 
 saying, *^ Don't be afraid, Fido ; all the hairs 
 of your head are numbered." 
 
 My little brother was very fond of a cat 
 which had belonged to his dead uncle, and one 
 day when she became ill he was in great dis- 
 tress, and wanted to know whether she would 
 go to Uncle Harry when she died. He was 
 told she had no soul to live in heaven. 
 
 When soon after the cat died, he came in 
 sobbing, ^^ Mother, can't any part of pussy go 
 to heaven ? " His one thought was how sad 
 it was she could not go to her old master. 
 
 A wee man, who much enjoys bible stories 
 with mother, was found relating them to his 
 Httle dog, because *' I fink ' Spot ' ought to 
 know his bible well." 
 
 Here is Httle ''Lo, the poor Indian " ! Pro- 
 bably his thoughts do not travel so far as 
 the ** equal sky" of his red brother, but 
 evidently he intends that his faithful dog 
 shall be made as eligible as possible. 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 Another little boy, on seeing his pet cat out 
 in the garden after a sharp shower, ran after 
 him, crying, ** Oh, Pussie ! Pussie ! you 
 mustn't go out in the wet in your stocking-feet, 
 or you^l get cold.'' 
 
 Bertha was a mite of three, whose greatest 
 love was given to flowers. She had a pet pot 
 of flowers which she used to carry about, and 
 was found kissing the buds one day. *' Fse 
 des kissing them to make them open," she 
 explained when questioned. 
 
 I have already referred to the strange way 
 in which so many children make for them- 
 selves imaginary companions and play- 
 fellows. The following is another illus- 
 tration : 
 
 Their active imagination leads lonely child- 
 ren to invent for themselves companions and 
 reproduce to their vision what is described in 
 words only. When some one was speaking of 
 the ** Shekinah cloud " in a twilight church 
 Bob exclaimed, '* There it is ! " pointing to the 
 chancel. The gathering darkness perhaps 
 helped his thoughts. 
 
 Little Fred was continually talking of unseen 
 56 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 companions, to whom he gave names and would 
 be quite hurt if his mother in any way seemed 
 to neglect them. '*You are letting Willie's 
 head hang down/' or, '*Rosie is being 
 squeezed," he would say, as if some unseen 
 companion were in the perambulator with him. 
 After a time, at his mother's suggestion to 
 send them home, he would say, '* Willie gone 
 home now." He would also report conversa- 
 tions with his invisible playfellows, who were 
 evidently quite real to him. 
 
 A child, however, may be a dreamer and a 
 seer, but it need not on that account cease 
 to be either logical or practical. Indeed, 
 one of the odd things is the combination 
 of wild imagination and sound common 
 sense. The following Saying has the 
 air of being an ingenious way of begging, 
 but I have no doubt the little speaker was 
 quite innocently stating the actual facts. 
 He had set out for town on a dream- 
 errand, and only became aware that it was 
 a dream when spoken to. 
 
 A lady, meeting a small boy whom she 
 knew, asked him where he was going. He 
 57 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 answered, '' I'm going into the town to spend 
 \ a penny, but I haven't got one ! " 
 
 A gentleman found his little daughter crying 
 bitterly because she had had a tumble. 
 
 '^ Never mind, Wynnie," he said; ** won't a 
 chocolate make it better ? " 
 
 "No," said the child between her sobs, 
 " but two would do it." 
 
 Ten-tenths of a child's waking life is spent 
 in observation. Those sharp, frank, inno- 
 cent eyes are constantly on the watch. 
 He may be talking, he may be playing, he 
 may be day-dreaming, but he is observing 
 and speculating all the time ; and out of 
 his observations he is quickly filling up 
 for himself a complex system De omnibus 
 rebus et quibusdam aliis. The following 
 are a few examples of the way in which 
 the great work is carried on. 
 
 Bessie is an only child, and rather a lonely 
 one. '^ Look at the sun," she remarked, 
 watching the sky one day as the sun disappeared 
 behind a cloud. '* He has gone to call on the 
 moon. Why, there he is again !" she exclaimed, 
 58 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 as he reappeared almost at once : " I suppose 
 she wasn't at home." 
 
 It was pretty to see a London child in a 
 copse carpeted with wild hyacinths. She 
 gathered great bunches of the blue flowers, 
 and shaking them on either side of her head, 
 cried, ''They ring the sweetest music I have 
 ever heard.'' 
 
 The unfolding of the fresh, unsullied bud of 
 a child's mind is one of the redeeming graces 
 of our time-worn old world. Seen through 
 those traiHng clouds of glory which enwrap 
 the opening soul, the familiar commonplaces 
 of life and nature are transformed into wonder- 
 ful bewitching mysteries. *' Hush ! " said a 
 little worshipper, to whom each blossom was ^^y^ 
 the temple of a goddess, on passing a field of 
 closed-up daisies. " Hush ! the fairies are all 
 in bed : see, their curtains are all closed ! " 
 
 Small Kenneth said to me one day, " Auntie, 
 if I could throw a stone to hit the sky, I wonder 
 what kind of a sound it would make ? " 
 
 Again, he had interestedly watched some 
 convolvoluses which grew in a garden that 
 he passed in his morning walk. Returning 
 59 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 late one evening, he found them shut and 
 curled up. 
 
 Wondering why, he said, " I suppose God 
 has shut them up not to let burglars see them 
 and get them." 
 
 When the sun shines on the falling rain, 
 every Scotch child knows that **the fairies 
 are baking " ; but a succession of such 
 showers raised a serious problem in the 
 vexed question of supply and demand. 
 
 " What can they be doing with all the 
 bread ? " 
 
 " I doot they'll be goin' to give a party the 
 nicht," was the ingenious solution. 
 
 We Scotch cannily say, " I doubt," when 
 no doubt whatever is meant to be under- 
 stood. 
 
 A little girl from an orphanage was spending 
 her holidays in the country. She was listening 
 to a wood-pigeon, and inquired, '* Is it singing 
 or crying ? " 
 
 One little friend gave us a pretty idea. 
 When told she was going to be taught music, 
 she asked if she would have to play all those 
 little birds sitting on the telegraph-wires. 
 60 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 Does not the idea recall the lines '' written 
 for gentle souls who love music," in ^* The 
 Professor at the Breakfast Table," on the 
 music of one of the first pianos ever played 
 in the hearingof the children of the Western 
 world ? 
 
 Just as the " Jubilate " in threaded whisper dies, 
 " Open it ! open it, lady !" the little maiden cries 
 (For she thought 'twas a singing creature caged 
 
 in a box she heard), 
 " Open it ! open it, lady ! and let me see the bird!" 
 
 One stormy day my little girl came to me 
 and said, **Come, mother, and Hsten to the 
 likkk voice in the drawing-room door." 
 
 It was the wind whistling through the key- 
 hole. 
 
 She always says in her prayers, ** Bless 
 Thy little lambs goodrmght,** 
 
 A child of about five was staying at the 
 house where at that time I most frequently 
 visited. She was put to bed one evening with- 
 out the curtains of her room being drawn. It 
 was one of those nights when clouds come over 
 and veil the sky and then disperse. Some one 
 went up to see whether the dear little girl was 
 asleep. 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 She said, ^^The stars all went in just now, 
 and then came out shining brighter than ever ; 
 I think they must have gone to look at 
 Christ." 
 
 Sometimes the unconscious mingling of 
 prosaic and romantic produces a quaint effect. 
 Carpet-laying had been engrossing attention 
 during the day, and the star-points, appearing 
 one after another in the evening sky, seemed 
 familiar. 
 
 '^ Oh ! look at the gold tacks in the carpet 
 of heaven ! " We laughed, but one quoted 
 softly : 
 
 . . . Look how the floor of heaven 
 Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold. 
 
 So true it is that the greatest is ever most 
 akin to the childlike. 
 
 But Anaximenes, without the help of a carpet, 
 came to the same conclusion regarding the 
 heavenly bodies four and a half centuries 
 before the Star of Bethlehem stood still 
 over the manger. They were designed 
 for ornament, he thought, and nailed, as 
 it were, like studs in the crystalline 
 sphere. 
 
 03 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 My little girl of three looked up at the sky 
 bright with stars and asked, " What are these 
 pretty little shining things?" When told they 
 were the stars, she said, '' Oh, I thought it was 
 the moon's eyes." 
 
 A little London girl, on seeing a half moon 
 in Edinburgh when out one night, exclaimed, 
 ** Your moon is not nearly so round as ours." 
 
 Somewhere in Plutarch — in his '' Morals," 1 
 think — the passage occurs : '' No man is 
 an exile where there is the same fire, 
 water, and air. . . . We should certainly 
 laugh at his folly who should affirm that 
 there was a better moon at Athens than 
 at Corinth ; and yet we in a sort commit 
 the same error when, being in a strange 
 country, we look upon the earth, the sea, 
 the air, the heavens doubtfully." 
 
 " God's blue tent spreads equally over all." 
 
 Flossie was enjoying her first visit to the 
 seaside, when one morning her mother told 
 her she would have to go into the town instead 
 of to the shore. ** Oh, mother," said Flossie, 
 *' and all that beautiful water will be wasting." 
 
 '* A big baff*, and p'enty of soap in it," said a 
 63 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 tiny maiden, looking from the deck of the 
 steamer at the foaming water round the 
 paddles. 
 
 One remembers the description of Charoba's 
 
 childhood in Landor's '' Gebir " : 
 
 Past are three summers since she first beheld 
 The ocean ; all around the child await 
 Some exclamation of amazement here : 
 She coldly said, her long-lasht eyes abased, 
 " Is this the mighty ocean ? is this all ? " 
 
 Little Ronald, aged eight, was at the sea- 
 side, and one day exclaimed, *' Auntie dear, 
 dont you think the waves are funny ? " 
 
 " How, dear ? What do you mean ? " said 
 auntie. 
 
 " Why, the top part comes faster than the 
 bottom part, and then it tumbles over and 
 goes sliding down the hill all white." 
 
 Tennyson noticed the same '* funny " phe- 
 nomenon, and described it as 
 
 the curl'd white of the coming wave 
 Glass'd in the slippery sand before it breaks, 
 
 and as the great waters which break 
 
 Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves 
 Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud. 
 
 Bunnie, aged seven, was staying in the 
 64 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 country, and took a great deal of interest in 
 the baby lambs. 
 
 " I suppose, mummie," he said one day 
 wonderingly, '*that God puts the wool on 
 them so that when they fall down out of 
 heaven they do not hurt themselves ! " 
 
 Two small boys were looking at a picture of 
 a long-eared rabbit. 
 
 " That's a rabbit," said one of them. 
 
 '* A wabbit ! " replied the other scornfully. 
 *' A wabbit indeed I Who ever seed a wabbit 
 wif wings on his head ? " 
 
 Another little one was looking at a spider's 
 web, and asked if the spider could really eat 
 a fly. On being told it could, he said, '* Well, 
 what would it do with a windmill fly ? " (a 
 daddy longlegs). 
 
 Nelly, five years old, watching the flies : 
 " How does flies sit down, mother ? " Address- 
 ing her three-year-old brother on another 
 occasion, she observed, "When you get a 
 bit older I will tell you all about Jesus on the 
 Cross; you wouldn't understand now^ if I did." 
 
 Have you ever taken a town-bred child into 
 the country for the first time ? It is delightful 
 
 65 B 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 to hear their quaint remarks about everything 
 they see. 
 
 One springtime I was in a wood with a six- 
 year-old friend of mine, when, to our mutual 
 delight, we found a thrush's nest. The child 
 had never seen a bird's egg before, so I 
 promised to blow one, that she might keep the 
 shell. 
 
 " Oh," she exclaimed in anxious delight, 
 " shall I see the little bird fly out ? " 
 
 Ivy, about four, has been to visit her 
 ^'Jannie" (grannie) and see the fields where 
 primroses grow. She lifts her face with a 
 look of awe to tell you, '*And they were 
 all quite clean ! " 
 
 A wee Scotch laddie, spending his first night 
 at a country farmhouse, awoke his mother 
 early in the morning, saying, *' Hark hoo the 
 hens are callin' on me ; I must rise from my 
 bed and be awa' oot to them." 
 
 The following anecdote may be told without 
 irreverence of this same little lad, for it was 
 spoken from the simplicity of his childlike 
 heart. He was watching some cows lowing 
 in a meadow, and after their usual manner at 
 
 66 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 every low they stretched their necks upward. 
 "See, mammy," said the little fellow, **hoo the 
 coos are lookin' awa' up to Jesus." 
 
 George, aged eight years, visited his grandma 
 on a cloudy unsettled day last August, and the 
 following conversation took place : 
 
 ** We are going to have a storm, grandma." 
 
 '*Are we, dear?" replied grandma. 
 
 "Yes; that dark cloud is not the lightning 
 cloud, but that red one underneath it. I hke 
 storms. There^s nothing to be afraid of, 
 grandma, if there's plenty of rain; and Tm 
 very fond of lightning and I like it forked." 
 
 A wee man of three picked up some lime 
 berries, and asked if they would grow to trees 
 if sown ; but he said, '* Nurse won't lend me 
 her needles I " 
 
 Another time he said, '* What is to-morrow ? 
 No, not to-morrow, the next day behind ? " 
 
 He once remarked, *' God does not make the 
 sky, the pufF-puff makes it— it's all smoke." 
 
 Giggums, who was not yet two, was looking 
 
 out of the window. Pointing to the sky, he 
 
 said, ** Train! puff-puff I" I looked out and 
 
 saw some trailing white filmy clouds, which 
 
 67 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 he evidently mistook for the steam of an 
 engine. 
 
 Janet was one day requested to ring the 
 bell for the servant. She rang, but no Mary 
 appeared. 
 
 ** Ring again, Janet," her mother said. 
 
 She pulled the handle more vigorously, and 
 we noticed that she was whispering something 
 to herself. 
 
 " What are you saying, Janet? " her mother 
 asked. 
 
 '* Oh, mother," she replied, *' I was saying, 
 * The more you ring, the more I won't come.' 
 I think that's what Mary is saying to herself 
 very likely." 
 
 This morning at school one little girl was 
 asked, " What is this word ' TO ' ? " 
 
 " It 'ooks 'ike a man and a d'um, and the 
 man is not playing it," was the unexpected 
 answer. *' And oh, auntie, 'ook at dat fat man 
 wiff his back to anoder d'um ; what is him ? " 
 
 It was " do." 
 
 Occasionally the small observer's scrutiny 
 gives rise to embarrassing situations if 
 people happen to be " touchy." 
 
 68 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 " Is oo's head c'acked, auntie ? " said little 
 Marion, aged three. 
 
 '* I hope not, dear. Why ? " 
 '''Cos dere's a line down de front." 
 
 A little boy went with his parents to have 
 tea at a friend's house. During the repast 
 he was observed thoughtfully watching a 
 lady guest having a plate of cake handed to 
 her. 
 
 To the amusement of all, the admonitory 
 words then broke from his lips, *^ Bread first, 
 cake after." So he passed on what he himself 
 had been taught to the grown-ups, who he 
 thought were equally in need of it. 
 
 Molly's candour, if a little embarrassing, is 
 very refreshing, and her gift of repartee, 
 though it sometimes leads to grave results in 
 the way of punishment, is irresistible. One 
 day she said, in all good faith, to a lady, 
 " People would think you were young if they 
 only saw your hair ! " 
 
 And one day in the schoolroom, when she 
 was very naughty and stubborn, her governess 
 told her to come and stand beside her. The 
 child went, and stood immovable. 
 
 "Molly dear," said her governess, "you 
 69 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 must answer my questions; it's no use your 
 standing there with your mouth shut." 
 
 ** It's no use me standing here with it open," 
 said Molly. 
 
 A number of these Sayings fall naturally 
 under the heading of Language, and they 
 serve to illustrate the heroic attempts of the 
 small people to master the speech of their 
 elders, the very remarkable way in which 
 they generally succeed in doing so, and the 
 odd mistakes they occasionally make when 
 a word has more than a single meaning. 
 
 H. was very fond of appropriating the 
 longest words which he heard. 
 
 One day, being sent to play upstairs, his 
 father, thinking him somewhat quiet, called 
 out, '* What are you doing, my boy ? " 
 
 At once came back the astonishing answer, 
 ** Only playing with physical things ! " 
 
 A lively, imaginative girl of eight, talking 
 with her dolls, made a boy-doll say to a girl- 
 dolly, " You will write to me sometimes while 
 you are away, won't you ? " 
 
 To which the other doll was made to reply, 
 
 " Oh yes, with exceeding great Joy / " 
 70 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 This was overheard by a boy relative, and 
 great was the teasing our precocious little 
 maiden received. 
 
 But she was also an ardent bible reader for 
 her age, and soon surprised her friends by 
 exclaiming, ''It was quite right to say 'ex- 
 ceeding great joy/ because it's in the bible 
 about the Wise Men." 
 
 When about six years old, Janet was taught 
 in her geography lessons that " Yarmouth is 
 celebrated for the curing of herrings." 
 
 '^ Oh, how funny it must be," she exclaimed^ 
 ''to see the little ill herrings sitting round 
 getting better / " 
 
 A wee girl, whose baby sister was teething, 
 was found pushing a pair of scissors into her 
 doll's mouth, and looked up to say, "Fm 
 cutting dolly's teeth." 
 
 When F. was quite tiny, he excused himself 
 for being a long time getting out of bed by 
 saying that he " couldn't essicate his foot from 
 the bed-clothes ! " 
 
 Another time, hearing a woman talking in 
 a shrill tone to a man with a very gruff voice, 
 he remarked, " I call that light and dark, don't 
 you?" 
 
 71 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 Children are very quick to adapt new ideas 
 to their own purposes. The following borrows 
 its touch of pathos from a tragic background. 
 
 A young Englishman of twenty-one had just 
 died of yellow fever in a foreign hotel, casting 
 a hushed gloom over the other residents. Two 
 small boys were playing horses outside in the 
 verandah ; the elder was overheard to say, 
 '* Come on, Frank ; put on the reins and I'll 
 drive you to an early grave." 
 
 Reading in the Kindergarten is often a source 
 of amusement to the teacher. 
 
 " What is a nib ? " asked a little reader of 
 four years. 
 
 " Oh, I know ! " said Dick ; '' it is that thing 
 that there isn't when you buy a pen," an ex- 
 planation that all the little ones seemed to 
 understand by experience. 
 
 On asking a child to tell me the name of the 
 mouth of a volcano, I received the answer, 
 after some hesitation, '*The chimney-pot of 
 the world ! " 
 
 ** Aunty," said my small nephew, *Molet me 
 give a penny to that poor man pretending a 
 leg ! " (He had a cork leg.) 
 
 72 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 The directness of a child does not always grasp 
 the meaning of " chaffing," to use a slang term 
 for a sort of good-humoured banter. 
 
 Harold heard his father chaffing his mother 
 one day about household expenses. 
 
 He listened for some minutes in silence, 
 then he burst out, *' You are an ' obzexionable" 
 husband, pappa I " 
 
 My little friend Teddy, the less-than-four- 
 year-old son of a Wesleyan minister, had been 
 greatly interested in the construction of a 
 martin's nest outside his father's study window, 
 and had made many inquiries concerning it. 
 He thus reproduced his newly acquired know- 
 ledge of the habits of different birds. '* Do 
 you know that the swallows go away in winter, 
 but the sparrows belong to this circuit ? " 
 
 At the time of the first outbreak of influenza, 
 about three years ago, many fatal cases 
 occurred where a tiny nephew of mine lived, 
 and he saw the frequent funeral corteges pass 
 the house. 
 
 One day his mother, though having a cold, 
 was going out, when the little boy (aged four) 
 said, *' Mother, do take care of your cold, or 
 you will make a funeral of yourself." 
 7Z 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 A little boy, when describing his baby sister 
 and recounting her many virtues to a lady 
 friend, concluded by saying, " She is just an 
 Amen baby." 
 
 **And what kind of baby may that be?" 
 inquired the lady. 
 
 " She holds up her little hands so ! Like 
 what the minister does at the blessing," 
 exultingly replied the proud brother. 
 
 A little girl living in a country village was in 
 the habit of hearing very frequently from her 
 mother's lips the expression, '^ Well, that is a 
 miracle ! " If her possessions, her spectacles 
 or her knitting needles — laid down in one 
 place — were shortly afterwards found in 
 another, having apparently travelled there 
 when left by themselves in that astonishing 
 way with which we are all familiar, she would 
 make use of the above expression, or when 
 in perplexity it would fall from her lips. 
 
 One day when the inspector was examining 
 the school he asked, *' What is a miracle ? " 
 
 The Httle one instantly put up her hand and 
 replied with great confidence, '' Something that 
 mother does not understand." 
 
 ** Sleep," said a small boy of eight, ** is a 
 74 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 kind of rest what comes over you, and some- 
 times it makes a thickle noise." 
 
 The same boy, on being asked what a 
 character was, repHed after a moment's 
 thought, " I should think it was a dictionary 
 of our actions while we are on earth." 
 
 A. once came running in from the green- 
 house and gave me a leaf, and he said, ** Look 
 what a lovely * temper ' leaf it is ! " It was off 
 the passwn-fiowQT. 
 
 Reefer jackets used some years ago to be 
 called pilot jackets : my sister had one. When 
 she was going out for a walk one day she 
 asked, '* Shall I put on my Crucifixion jacket ?" 
 
 ** What do you mean ? " said mother. 
 
 '* Why, my Crucifixion jacket ! " 
 
 *' Oh ! I suppose you mean your pilot 
 jacket ! " 
 
 '' Well, pilot [Pilate] ! I knew it had some- 
 thing to do with the Crucifixion." 
 
 The novel interpretations they constantly 
 put upon words — so familiar to their elders as 
 to make the latter think all explanation totally 
 unnecessary — are often most comical. Two 
 little lads were heard, one Saturday night, 
 75 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 singing lustily and with particular emphasis the 
 opening lines of the hymn beginning 
 
 Ere another Sabbath's close, 
 Ere again we seek repose. 
 
 Their mother suggested that this was a hymn 
 more suitable for Sunday than for Saturday 
 night — to their great astonishment. ''But, 
 mother," they protested, *'on Saturday night 
 you air our clothes for Sunday, while we seek 
 repose," — the words, as they rendered them, 
 being 
 
 Air another Sabbath's clothes ! 
 
 Air again : we seek repose ! 
 
 Father had a great many canaries, and spoke 
 of selling some of them. Charhe looked up 
 horrified. " Mother," he said, catching his 
 breath, " will daddy cut the poor little dickies 
 into halves ? " 
 
 '' No," replied mother, laughing ; " why do 
 you ask ? " 
 
 *'Well, mother, he said they would be 45. 
 a-piecCj and I thought he was going to chop 
 them up." 
 
 Children mix up their knowledge in rather 
 a distracting way sometimes. One little girl, 
 on being asked how she knew a horse was an 
 
 76 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 animal, replied, ''Because it has four equal 
 sides and four right angles." 
 
 The same child declared people could live 
 without air. ''For," she said, "I know a 
 gentleman that has none on the top of him." 
 
 A little girl of our acquaintance was repeating 
 her prayer : 
 
 This night when I lie down to sleep, 
 I give my soul to Christ to keep. 
 
 On reaching this point she looked up in her 
 father's face and asked the startling question, 
 "Will I give Him my keels too ? " 
 
 On one occasion Lillie, seeing a bow on the 
 back of her mother's mantle, remarked proudly, 
 " I have a bow on my mantelpiece." 
 
 " Mr. Weston has just been with us a year 
 to-day," observed a widowed mother to her 
 children, in reference to a boarder who had 
 taken up his abode with them to augment the 
 family purse. 
 
 " Three cheers for Mr. Weston, mother ! " 
 cried the eldest boy. 
 
 "And three so/as too, muvver," shouted 
 three-year-old Alec, waving his cap in the air. 
 77 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 An apple-charlotte and a plum pudding were 
 on the table, and the children were asked 
 which they would have. Charlotte chose 
 apple-charlotte. *^ Not a.pp\e-Charloite" said 
 baby Charlie when it came to his turn, *' but 
 plum-w^ / " 
 
 *' What did you have for dinner to-day ? " 
 a mother asked her little son. 
 
 '' Indigestion," was the prompt reply. 
 
 Little Cousin John's birthday was a source 
 of mysterious trouble to him. When the 
 other children spoke gleefully of their birth- 
 days the look on Johnny's face became very 
 sorrowful : " Oh, John's birfday fell down ; 
 John's birfday tummle over ! " 
 
 None of us could guess what terrible mis- 
 hap it was that was disturbing his little soul, 
 till one day he murmured sadly, ''John's 
 birfday knocked over! " Then the light flashed 
 upon us, and we were able to comfort him. 
 Johnnie's birthday was in October. 
 
 My small boy asked me if the sycamore 
 tree was called that because it was more sick 
 than any other tree. 
 
 78 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 Isobel was told to leave something on her 
 plate for '' Mrs. Manners." '* But who ts 
 Mrs. Manners?" asked she, and before any 
 one could answer, ** I suppose it's the water 
 that washes the plates." 
 
 Edwin for some years persisted in speaking 
 of himself in the third person, as *' he," never 
 as^'I." 
 
 One very frosty day his mother was warning 
 him that if he fell down in such weather his little 
 legs would break like sticks of sealing-wax. 
 
 This warning failed to produce the desired 
 effect, as the child replied, *' He Itkes his little 
 legs to break like sticks of sealing-wax." 
 
 It is by no means uncommon for the small 
 person to express a special liking for 
 the disaster which is foretold as the 
 certain result of some act of self-indul- 
 gence or disobedience. The peculiar 
 form of speech referred to in this last 
 Saying is also of frequent occurrence, 
 though probably less common and much 
 less perplexing than the habit of saying 
 " What Fm going to do ? " when the 
 speaker means *' What are you going to 
 79 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 do/' and " Come and kiss you," when he 
 means " Come and kiss me," It seems to 
 me that there is a very natural explana- 
 tion of this transference of the pronouns. 
 A child is addressed as "you," and he 
 accepts the word as a sort of namej so 
 that when he speaks of himself he very 
 properly uses the name in which he is 
 spoken to: '''You' did this"; "'You' 
 loves mamma." Similarly he hears his 
 elders speaking of themselves as " I " ; 
 obviously that must be their name, and he 
 is quite logical when he addresses them 
 as " I " : " Where Fm going to ? [where 
 are you going to?] You [I] go with I 
 [you]." 
 
 It is often at a very early age that we find 
 the little people tackling the mysteries of 
 time and space, the enigmas of birth and 
 death, the marvels of heaven, and a crowd 
 of other questions to which we ourselves 
 shall find no answer on this side of the 
 grassy gate and the dusty way. In all 
 these matters the children's views take 
 the colour of the parents' teaching. 
 
 Harry, aged three, was of a very inquiring 
 80 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 mind. He was always wanting to know 
 ** where yesterday had gone," and ''why did 
 counting never end ? " 
 
 '' Do our souls never die ? " asked Jack. 
 ''No, dear." "But wouldn't they if you put 
 them in water ? " 
 
 One day my nephew, aged four, was playing 
 with toys on the hearthrug, I reading by his 
 side. Suddenly he raised his head and asked, 
 " Auntie, where was I before I was born ? " 
 
 Much surprised at the question, I replied, 
 " Nowhere ; there was no little Harold." 
 
 He rose indignantly, and standing before 
 me, said, " I was — I was up in heaven all in 
 pieces, waiting for God to make me up." 
 
 Little Molly, on hearing something that had 
 happened two years ago, remarked, "Aleck 
 was not in the world then ; he was only dust 
 f ying about the street." 
 
 Two little boys were one day recalling 
 incidents in their brief past, and asking each 
 other, " Do you mind [remember] ? *' 
 
 Presently their younger brother joined in 
 the conversation, and said he minded too, but 
 the eldest little lad quickly exclaimed, " How 
 
 8l F 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 can you mind ? You were flying about dust 
 then." 
 
 One day my little son saw a heap of dust in 
 the road, and asked if that was what God 
 had made him out of. 
 
 Two little children being awakened by their 
 nurse one morning and told that they had a 
 new little brother, were keen, as children are, 
 to know where and how he had arrived. 
 
 '* It must have been the milkman,'' said the 
 girl. 
 
 '' Why the milkman ? " 
 
 ** Because he says on his cart ' Families 
 Supphed/ " 
 
 Two small cousins (into each of whose 
 homes little strangers had arrived) were over- 
 heard comparing notes as to the respective 
 virtues of the httle brother and sister. 
 
 ** Arthur, did you say that your baby came 
 in a trumpet ? " 
 
 '^ No, Eva ; it makes a noise like a trumpet, 
 and wakens me in the night." 
 
 To which Eva replied, *^ My baby came on 
 the wings of the wind." 
 82 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 When I had a new baby my other Httle ones 
 were brought in to see it. 
 
 My youngest child said, *' Where did she 
 come from ? " 
 
 The elder one, four years old, said, **The 
 angels brought her down on their wings." 
 
 A small boy asked whether, if he prayed for 
 things in churchy he would surely get them. It 
 was explained that prayers were not always 
 answered, as sometimes the Father did not 
 think it best to grant the request, but that it 
 was all right for him to present his petitions 
 either at home or in church. 
 
 Two years later a new little sister came to 
 the house, and he told his mother that she did 
 not need to take care of this baby at all, as he 
 would, for he had prayed for her and got her, 
 though, he added, '^ I had to pray an awful lot 
 before she came." 
 
 And surely the child of many prayers was 
 carefully tended and loved and petted by her 
 oldest brother, till called home on his sixteenth 
 birthday. 
 
 She, a tiny tot, one day surprised me by 
 asking, *' Mamma, what did you do in 
 heaven?" 
 
 83 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 Without thinking, I answered, "Why, my 
 dear, I have never been there/' 
 
 ** Oh yes, but you have." 
 
 ''When?" 
 
 ''Why, before you came here a little baby." 
 
 "Well," I replied; "tell me what you did 
 there, for you have only been here four years, 
 and I have been a great deal longer." 
 
 " Oh," she answered, " I have been thinking, 
 and trying to 'member, but I can't one bit." 
 
 " Lord Jesus, kiss me before I die," was the 
 nightly prayer of a sweet httle maiden, her 
 idea being that a kiss was the sign of forgive- 
 ness. And when she was four years old the 
 angels came and laid her in the Good Shep- 
 herd's bosom, and I doubt not He gave His 
 little lamb the kiss she so earnestly desired. 
 
 " I don't want to go to heaven for a good 
 long time, mother ! " said a little girl. 
 
 " Why not, dearie ? " 
 
 "Well, I wouldn't know any one there, you 
 see." 
 
 "But God would know you, darling; He is 
 your heavenly Father." 
 
 " Would He take me on His knee, mother?" 
 
 " Yes, I am sure He would." 
 84 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 These children are always striking ancient 
 chords of feeling with their simple ques- 
 tions. Many will recollect the passage 
 in Abbe Carme's Life of Madame de 
 Farcey, '' When the soul arrives in heaven, 
 God takes it on His knees and calls it 
 His daughter." And have we not a lovely 
 companion passage in the sixteenth canto 
 of the '* Purgatorio " : 
 
 Forth from the hand of Him, who fondles it 
 Before it is, like to a little girl 
 Weeping and laughing in her childish sport, 
 
 Issues the simple Soul, that nothing knows 
 Save that, proceeding from a joyous Maker, 
 Gladly it turns to that which gives it pleasure. 
 
 '* Do you know what God does when He 
 wants poorly people not to get well again ? " 
 asked Gerald of his sister just after their 
 grandfather's death. 
 
 " He makes them die, of course," answered 
 the matter-of-fact Florence. 
 
 '* Ah ! " said Gerald, with a far-away look in 
 his eyes, '' but do you know how He does it ? " 
 
 Florence shook her head. 
 
 '^Why, God just stoops down over them, 
 and breathes into their mouths, and their souls 
 fly right away to heaven." 
 85 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 A little seven-year-old boy, on hearing for 
 the first time about the Rontgen rays, ex- 
 claimed, " If I were a doctor, I know what I 
 should do. I should turn the Rontgen rays 
 on to a person who was dying, so that I could 
 see his soul going to God." 
 
 My little girl was three or four years old. 
 When walking out one day she saw a funeral. 
 Telling us of it next morning, some one kindly 
 and solemnly said that one day she too must 
 die and be buried. 
 
 An emphatic denial was the immediate reply. 
 
 *' Oh yes, dear, indeed you must." 
 
 I glanced anxiously at my child, for I had 
 purposely kept the subject of death away from 
 such little ones. 
 
 Never shall I forget the horror expressed on 
 that young face, instantly succeeded by a look 
 and tone of glad triumph as she appealed 
 to me. 
 
 '* No, I shan't ; shall I, mamma ? Jesus died 
 instead of me, and I shall live for ever." 
 
 After a swift prayer for aid I replied, 
 "Well, dear, your body must die, but your 
 body is not really you. Your soul's you ; that 
 which thinks and feels and loves." 
 
 86 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 She seemed satisfied, but I wondered if she 
 understood, A week later she looked up at me 
 and said, ** My body will die, but my body is 
 not me ; my souFs me, isn't it, mamma ? " 
 
 Perhaps most of us are slow to realise how 
 early the heart of a child vibrates with tender 
 sympathy, and how easily that sympathy is 
 aroused. 
 
 Little Charlie had been taken for a walk 
 through the cemetery, which lies on the slope 
 of the old seaport town and just within sound 
 of the sea. His bright keen eyes seemed to 
 take note of everything, and at tea-time he 
 gave his father an animated description of the 
 place. 
 
 Suddenly he asked, '^What does 'R.I.P.' 
 stand for ? Some of the gravestones had a lot 
 of reading on them, and then at the bottom of 
 the words there were the big letters * R.I. P.' 
 What do they mean ? " 
 
 "What does my little son think they 
 mean ? " said his father. 
 
 Charlie paused for a moment. Then, lifting 
 his earnest Httle face, he voiced all uncon- 
 sciously the longing of many a broken heart 
 whose dead lay sleeping in that '^ God's Acre": 
 87 
 
/" 
 
 CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 *' I think, father, they must mean * Return If 
 Possible: " 
 
 Maurice's father died when he was quite a 
 little chap, but Maurice used to love to talk 
 about him ; and one day, when his mother had 
 been telling him that his father was really 
 alive, only out of sight in heaven, Maurice said 
 thoughtfully, '^ Mother, I wish God would put 
 some panes of glass in the floor of heaven, so 
 that we could see dear father's feet just now 
 and then when he's walking about." 
 
 It was touching and beautiful to hear a 
 dying child say, '' Mother, I have been pray- 
 ing to Jesus not to let you cry. I don't like to 
 see you crying." 
 
 Wonderful strength was granted the mother 
 in answer to her darling's prayer, and the 
 child passed away, without being distressed 
 by her mother's grief, to the land where there 
 are no more tears. 
 
 Leslie was only just four years old when 
 grannie died. 
 
 '' Do you ever think of grannie ? " some one 
 asked. 
 
 ** Oh yes, I always think of dear grannie on 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 Sundays : I look at the altar, and I think God 
 is there, and grannie must be there too, for 
 grannie is with God." 
 
 And, hearing of the death of one who had 
 known grannie, Isobel said, ^' What a surprise 
 dear grannie in heaven will get when Mr. S. 
 from S. walks in ! " 
 
 '' Yes," said Leslie ; " he'll tell her all about 
 us." 
 
 "Yes, I know it's Mr. McT.'s funeral, but 
 where is he ? " said three-year-old Isobel, 
 with that curious searching into the unseen 
 that often characterises very young children. 
 
 Evelyn was sitting with her aunt, when 
 
 her uncle came in and said, '* Mr. is 
 
 dead," referring to a friend who had passed 
 away. 
 
 '* Auntie," said the child, "I wonder what 
 
 Mr. is doing now. I suppose the angels 
 
 are just showing him round." 
 
 'Tm very sorry Mr. Egerton is dead," 
 remarked six-year-old Maggie, on hearing of 
 the death of an old friend of the family, " but " 
 (cheerfully) ^* I suppose he has seen dada by 
 now, and told him how we all are." 
 89 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 The other day our youngest heard of the 
 death of a friend, and instantly remarked: 
 
 ''Then she sees Ag to-night," Ag being 
 a sister who had gone home at the age of ten 
 years. 
 
 We often hear interesting conversations in 
 the Kindergarten. The following is one : 
 
 '* Oh, Eric, my boy, I have told you so often 
 not to scribble on your book ; now 3'ou are 
 four you ought to know better, Eric." 
 
 ''But, auntie, it is my name, and Jesus says 
 if my name is not written in the Book I shall 
 be punished." 
 
 Ethel. " What is punished ? " 
 
 Ida. "Whipped." 
 
 Ernest. " Put in a corner." 
 
 Laura. " No, it means ' not go to heaven.' " 
 
 Ida. " Well, I don't believe you do go to 
 heaven." 
 
 Eric. " Yes, you do ; my father says so." 
 
 Ida. " But they put you in the ground ; I've 
 seen them." 
 
 Ernest. " Oh, and does the nasty dirt get in 
 your eyes ? " 
 
 Ethel. " No, they put you in a big box to 
 keep you clean." 
 
 90 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 Ida. ** Well, you see, you don^t go to 
 heaven." 
 
 Laura. ^^Yes, you do if you are good. 
 Don't you know when it is dark at night Jesus 
 comes down and gets you out of the box. He 
 fastens some wings on you, and away you go 
 with Him.'' 
 
 Ernest. *^Does He bring a scewdiver wiff 
 Him?" 
 
 Laura. *^ No, silly boy ; don't you know 
 Jesus is strong enough to do anything ? " 
 
 Percy's merriment while a friend of the 
 family lay dead shocked his brother, who said, 
 
 ** I wonder you can do that when Mr. M 
 
 is dead." 
 
 When the reproof had been administered 
 several times, Percy retorted, ^^ Oh, stop saying 
 that. The world must go on." 
 
 It is curious to note the easy and indeed 
 inevitable transition from the grave to 
 heaven and the angels. 
 
 James was a little boy of about four years 
 
 old. One day he was walking with his 
 
 mother in a cemetery. Impressed evidently 
 
 by the peace and beauty of the spot, he 
 
 91 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 looked up and said thoughtfully,' '* Mother, 
 isn't it nice that the dead have such a pretty 
 home-place ? " 
 
 One lovely spring day little Annie was taken 
 by her mother to the cemetery. Seeing all 
 the tombstones and flowers, and the spring 
 sunshine over all, she said, '* Oh, mother, how 
 lovely I Is this heaven ? " 
 
 A little boy, eight years old, when lying ill 
 in bed, asked his governess to read to him the 
 ^^ Burial of Moses." '^ It am beautiful," he 
 said, ^^ to be buried by the angels." 
 
 When he lay dying, watching the setting 
 sun, his words were : 
 
 *^ How lovely it must be on the other side! " 
 
 Little Willie was listening attentively while 
 the story of Jacob's ladder was read at prayers. 
 When I was putting him to bed he said, 
 ** Now I know how it is when people die. 
 They get to that place where Jacob's ladder 
 was, and climb up by that to heaven." 
 
 I said, " Not quite, Willie : wherever we are 
 when we die, if we love Jesus we go straight 
 
 up to heaven." 
 
 92 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 He said, ** Yes, mamma ; but that was one of 
 the gates of heaven, wasn^t it ? " 
 
 ** I do think it rather funny of mother to 
 have gone away and left httle Nannie," sighed 
 a Httle three-year-old maiden who had just 
 been left motherless ; *' but, never mind," con- 
 tinued she, a tender smile trembling on her 
 lips, ^' she's gone to grannie, and it's always 
 summer weather there." 
 
 '' Tve been to heaven ! " brightly exclaimed 
 another child, who, with his brothers and 
 sisters, had been taking flowers to *^ Grannie's" 
 grave. And then, shaking his little head, he 
 emphatically added, **but I shouldn't hke to 
 live there ! " He had been to the funeral of 
 this same dear friend, and had then been told 
 she was " gone to heaven." 
 
 When that great and good man, the late 
 Archbishop Plunket, passed away, a bright 
 blue-eyed little fellow, who was walking 
 with his grandmother on the road running at 
 the foot of the beautiful Dublin mountains, 
 suddenly looked up and said, **Oh, grandma, 
 I wish you would take me to St. Patrick's to 
 the good Archbishop's funeral." 
 93 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 "I will take you there some Sunday," I 
 said. 
 
 " Oh no, grannie," he said ; '* it would be 
 too late. I would rather go to the funeral. I 
 have never seen the gate of heaven, and when 
 such a good man is being buried I am sure it 
 would open, and I should see in." 
 
 The other world is such a real and glorious 
 place to children, that it is a subject of some 
 surprise when they see the tears of their 
 parents in times of bereavement. ^^ Mamma 
 cried when grandpa was taken to heaven, but 
 we did not cry," said a little girl. 
 
 A little thing of three years, hearing that 
 nurse had been to her husband's funeral, ran 
 up to her and asked, *^ Have 'ou been lo 
 heaven, nursie ? Do tell baby all *bout it." 
 
 Death, to them, is Hke ^'stepping into another 
 room." 
 
 A sweet, winsome little maiden, three years 
 old, lost the father who had loved and prized 
 her as *' the flower of the flock " — his youngest. 
 A year or so later she showed his photograph 
 to a visitor, saying, ''That is my father! My 
 papa is in heaven, but he loves us just the 
 same." 
 
 94 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 "Who told you so, darling?" the visitor 
 asked. 
 
 With a rather indignant air, she replied, 
 *' No one told rae. I know it my self ^ 
 
 The same little queen of the house allowed 
 her auntie, who had just come to see them, to 
 put her to bed on condition that she told her 
 stories. After hosts of anecdotes, auntie 
 talked to her about *' Jesus loves me, this I 
 know." 
 
 The wee maiden then enlarged upon it by 
 saying, ** Yes, Jesus loves mother, and Bertha, 
 and me, and auntie — and every one, I do love 
 Jesus so. I'm going to write Him a letter to 
 say how I love Him." 
 
 Bertie sat up in bed, blowing good-night 
 kisses to every one. ** There's a kiss for 
 father, and a kiss for mother, and a kiss for 
 baby," said he gleefully. 
 
 " Baby can't get a kiss now, dear," said 
 father; *'he is with God in heaven." 
 
 " Oh, then ril blow a kiss to God, and He'll 
 give it to baby." And raising his little face, 
 he blew a kiss to God for baby. 
 
 Tricksy Four-and-a-half-years to her nurse : 
 '* When I am a licky angel I s'all come down 
 95 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 and kiss you, and I s'all get in your bed, side 
 of ze wall. It will be funny to sleep with me 
 when I have wings; I hope I s'ant Tighten 
 you." 
 
 Auntie had come to tuck Joyce up in bed, 
 and had been reading to her from the well- 
 worn copy of '' Peep of Day." As she took up 
 the candle to leave the room, Joyce, who had 
 spent a delicious day in the garden with her 
 dolls, said meditatively, ^* I s'all have to leave 
 my dollie's pram behind when Jesus comes to 
 take me tc heaven ? " 
 
 Auntie was obliged to answer in the affirma- 
 tive. Then, in a rather more cheery voice, the 
 small niece exclaimed : 
 
 '* But I 'spect He^U have lots of moons and 
 things for us to play wiv up there I '^ 
 
 Three-year-old Georgie had lost a very dear 
 grannie, and one day, having asked his mother 
 when grannie was coming back, she explained 
 that grannie would not return to them because 
 she had gone to heaven, but that some da^' 
 they would go to her. Several daj^s latei^ 
 after sitting quiet for some time, he suddenly 
 asked, ** When you, an' me, an* Johnnie go to 
 live with Jesus, who'll make dada's tea ? " 
 96 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 A little girl who was delicate, and had 
 frequently to rest in her crib during the day, 
 inquired of her sturdy brother whether there 
 were any ^^ tibs " in heaven. ^' Oh no/' was 
 the answer. *^ They sing hymns there all day 
 and fly about all night.'' 
 
 Another child evidently appreciated what he 
 must have considered very prudent foresight 
 on his father's part. " Mamma/' he asked, 
 ** why is it that people don't have enough to 
 eat in heaven ? " His mother was naturally 
 surprised — not to say shocked ; but he per- 
 sisted, ^' Well, then, why does father pray 
 every day, ' Make us more meat [meet] for 
 heaven ' ? " 
 
 Little Eric was discussing heaven one day 
 with his friend Ernest ; it was just before 
 Christmas. Eric said, '* I want to go up to 
 heaven to see what it is like, and see if Jesus 
 and David and Paul are there." 
 
 " But," said Ernest, " I wouldn't go before 
 Christmas, 'cause you'll get nothing in your 
 stocking there." 
 
 **Oh! won't you?" exclaimed Eric. 
 
 Next day we heard him tell Ernest con- 
 fidentially that he wasn't going at all, 
 97 G 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 '' because Ada says they have nothing to eat 
 in heaven.'* 
 
 Two little boys had been tucked into their 
 cots for the night, when the elder was overheard 
 describing to the younger the glories of heaven. 
 
 As he paused, tiny Eddie asked anxiously, 
 '* But, Ivey, won't there be anything to eat in 
 heaven ? " 
 
 '^Why, yes," replied Ivey confidently; 
 *' there'll be angels' food, of course." 
 
 Paul was riding outside an omnibus, and 
 from this coign of vantage saw a dying horse 
 in a crowded London thoroughfare. He cried 
 so bitterly that mother had to explain that 
 the poor horse was tired, so God had sent it to 
 sleep. 
 
 Weeks later his mind reverted to the scene. 
 ** Mother, do you remember that po-o-r horse 
 we saw in London ? " he asked. " He's in 
 heaven now, isn't he, with a beautiful golden 
 crown on his head ? " 
 
 " Mother," said three-year-old Innes, who 
 had been to church, " I didn't see God, and 
 sister said it was God's house ? " 
 
 " God lives in heaven," explained mother, 
 98 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 "and if you are a good boy you will go to 
 heaven, too." 
 
 Looking around, Innes said incredulously, 
 " I don't see the stairs ! " 
 
 ** But you will have wings like the angels," 
 was the reply. 
 
 After pondering a while, the wee fellow asked 
 in somewhat wisful tones, '* Mother, can the 
 angels take off their wings when they go to 
 bed?" 
 
 A little boy, whose mother was teaching him 
 about the angels, suddenly exclaimed joyfully, 
 ** Mother, wouldn't the Httle angels be pleased 
 to get my * hullabaloon ' what went up ? " 
 meaning a coloured air-balloon, the string of 
 which had broken.- 
 
 " I think the angels must be our little dead 
 brothers and sisters sent to watch over us," 
 said sweet little Connie, who had recently lost 
 two sisters. 
 
 Little Pansy had been told that her grand- 
 mamma was in heaven. One day during a 
 thunderstorm she toddled up to her mother's 
 knee and said sadly, '^ Big noise up in heaven 
 to-day. Poor grandmamma ! " 
 99 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 A child I know intimately very much amused 
 her family by the way she showed a little touch 
 of jealousy. She was one of a very large 
 family, but there having been six boys born 
 between her birth and that of her elder sister, 
 she was naturally very much petted. A little 
 more than two years after her advent another 
 little sister was added to the fold. Being very 
 delicate, this baby had to receive more attention 
 than baby number one quite approved of, but 
 when about six months old she died. This 
 had to be explained to the child, and her elder 
 sister, taking her on her lap, told her that 
 *' dear little Jessie had gone to live with God 
 and the angels in the beautiful heaven/' After 
 a moment's thought the child answered, in a 
 very contented tone, " And a welly dood place 
 for her, too." 
 
 '* I hope I shan't die the last," said a little 
 girl to her father. 
 
 "Why, dearie?" 
 
 ''Because," she answered, "there won't be 
 any one to fasten on my wings for me." 
 
 Tommy had been hearing about the angels 
 in heaven in their white robes. " Do they all 
 wear white robes, auntie ? " 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 '* Yes, dear/' 
 
 " Are there very many angels ? " 
 '*0h yes, a great many." 
 *' How many ? " 
 
 " Oh, thousands and thousands." 
 ^^What a big wash-house God must 
 have ! " 
 
 A Httle niece visiting me asked if God 
 gave everybody in the world bread. I said 
 '* Yes." She said, ^* What a large bread- 
 basket God must have." 
 
 The baker brought our bread to the door in 
 a basket. 
 
 I have now reached a section of the Sayings 
 which cannot but suggest to thoughtful 
 readers many serious considerations. It 
 opens with two very pregnant utter- 
 ances : 
 
 My little girl, when very young, on being 
 found fault with for fractiousness, quaintly 
 remarked, *' I not naughty, I not kite well." 
 
 Another child : '^ I don't feel very well 
 to-day. I feel rather ugly." 
 
 Both remarks are " quaint " enough, but 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 they embody an important truth which 
 most of us are exceedingly slow to 
 recognise — that much of the fractiousness 
 and naughtiness of the httle ones springs 
 from some unfavourable physical condi- 
 tion, and should be treated from a physical 
 point of view. A brisk run in the fresh 
 air, a merry greeting, a tune on the piano 
 a few minutes^ frolic, will often restore the 
 physical equilibrium, and the child will 
 cease to feel ugly and to seem naughty. 
 And the Saying which follows, audacious as 
 it may sound in its frank wording, conveys 
 a warning which no wise father or mother 
 will venture to neglect : 
 
 '^ If you don't forgive me noWy mother, when 
 Tm sorry y^ exclaimed a little boy who was in 
 disgrace for a fault, '* FU soon not be sorry, and 
 then I won't care about the forgiving ! " 
 
 It is not my province, however, to convert 
 these childish utterances into homiletic 
 texts. I will set them down without further 
 comment, and let the reader derive from them 
 what amusement or instruction he may. 
 
 " If there was just one Sunday in the year, 
 
 102 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 how well I should keep it ! " sighed eight-year- 
 old motherless Godfrey, as he applied himself 
 to the learning of the hymns and paraphrases 
 which his grannie thought necessary for the 
 '* keeping " of Sunday. 
 
 Davie, on hearing a hand-organ out of 
 doors : *' Don't talk to me now. The music 
 makes me think of heaven and of my dear 
 mamma," but on the first Sunday on which he 
 was taken to chapel Davie said, ^' I wish I 
 was a butterfly^ and then nobody would ask 
 me to go to chapel." 
 
 Jim had managed to learn his first hymn. 
 A friend was visiting the family, and the 
 mother, pleased with Jim's progress, asked 
 him to repeat a verse, whereupon he said 
 gravely : 
 
 "I'm a little pilgrim 
 And a stranger here ; 
 Though this world is pleasant 
 Sunday is always near !" 
 
 Molly was always a little church-goer, being 
 promoted from children's service in the after- 
 noon through evening service (in the summer) 
 to the long morning services, and great was 
 her pride therein. After two or three Sundays, 
 103 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 however, the length of the service palled on 
 her, and one day, coming from church, she said 
 wearily to her mother, '* Oh, mummy, I do 
 hate the Litany ; it makes me so hungry ! " 
 
 Time passed, and Molly could read a little, 
 though the long words were still to be avoided 
 or looked at askance, but one Sunday mother 
 noticed a thoughtful, puzzled look on her face, 
 and wondered. The solution soon came. 
 
 '* Mother," said Molly, " why is that prayer 
 called * a general confusion ?* Is it because 
 everybody kneels down and kicks the seats ? " 
 
 One Christmas Day, when Molly and her 
 brother were having their usual happy time, 
 the little woman remarked, ** Christmas day is 
 Jesus's birthday, but it seems as if we get all 
 the presents ! *' 
 
 Walter, aged four, accompanied his mother 
 to the church of which his father was the 
 minister, and for the first time in this little 
 boy's Hfe he was allowed to remain and see the 
 celebration of the Lord's Supper. 
 
 On his return home he eagerly inquired of 
 his mother what it all meant, and she gave him 
 a simple but satisfactory explanation of the 
 whole service. 
 
 104 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 It happened the next day his father was 
 very ill in bed, and both mother and child were 
 naturally anxious about him. Taking her 
 little one on her lap, the mother said, ** Walter, 
 what should we do if dear papa were to 
 die ? '* 
 
 The Httle fellow looked very pensively in 
 her face, and evidently remembering her 
 explanation of the service which had so 
 interested and impressed his mind the day 
 before, he said with great emphasis, " We 
 must take a little bread and a little wine in 
 remembrance of him." 
 
 An embryo divine, of six years, remarked, 
 '^ Father, you said in your sermon that our 
 disappointments are God's appointments, but / 
 think that our appointments are sometimes 
 God's disappointments." 
 
 A little boy of my acquaintance, about three 
 years old, when saying his grace after dinner 
 was in the habit of enumerating everything of 
 which he had partaken : one day his pudding 
 was brought in covered with a new cover. 
 When he said grace he said, " Thank God for 
 meat, potatoes, pudding, and my nice bright 
 
 105 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 Lily, learning the Lord's Prayer for the 
 first time, paused at the petition for daily 
 y bread. "Oh, gramma, a little bacon too!'* 
 she interpolated. 
 
 A little sister one night added to her prayers, 
 '* Bless uncle, auntie, Willie, but not Bennie 
 — teasy boy." 
 
 Little lan's father was visiting London, 
 and had promised to bring a toy train for 
 his little son. The day that the father was 
 to travel Ian prayed, " God bless papa, and 
 bring him home safely, and — and — and his 
 luggage ! " 
 
 Margaret was in the meadow one Sunday 
 afternoon, when a dark cloud came over the 
 sky. She stopped suddenly and said, " Pray, 
 God, don't let it rain on my new pehsse," and 
 trotted on again. 
 
 Children's prayers frequently show a won- 
 derful faith, though it is difficult to keep grave 
 over the strange requests they make. 
 
 After hearing the story of the Prophet 
 Elijah, a little girl knelt down and said, ** Pray, 
 God, send the Prophet Elijah to tell auntie to 
 knit me blue stockings instead of grey. I 
 don't like grey." 
 
 1 06 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 To her delight, the blue stockings were given 
 to her. 
 
 It was the close of a happy day, bed-time 
 had come, and the little boy, whose fourth 
 birthday it was, had said his prayers and was 
 kissed good-night, when suddenly, with one of 
 those flash-light looks peculiar to children, he 
 inquired, " Do you think God would mind if I 
 thanked Him for my nice day ? " 
 
 Being told that the kind Father would cer- 
 tainly be pleased, the little white-robed figure 
 knelt again, and bending his head, reverently 
 and gratefully added, ^! I am much obliged to 
 you, God, for my nice birthday." 
 
 " I hope you pray for your baby sister," said 
 mother to a little girl. 
 
 *^ Oh yes " (with emphasis) ; '' I always pray 
 for my baby sister, and the doctor, and Gippie." 
 Gippy was the nursery dog and faithful play- 
 fellow. 
 
 ^'But don't you pray for the others in the 
 house too ? " 
 
 '* Oh no ; they can pray for themselves." 
 
 Father was going away on business, so he 
 called his eldest little boy and said, '^ Johpnie 
 107 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 while Fm away I want you to take great care 
 of mother. I leave her in your charge." 
 
 That night, when Johnnie knelt at his 
 mother^s knee saying his evening prayer, he 
 said as usual, '* Please, Lord, bless grand- 
 mamma and take care of her ; bless father and 
 take care of him ; but you needn't trouble 
 about mother, because /'m going to take care 
 of her." 
 
 Little Maisie had a tiny brother who was 
 ailing a little from teething. In her prayers she 
 never omitted to ask God to make Georgie 
 better. 
 
 By-and-by a baby sister came, and nurse 
 remarked, *^ You'll have another to pray for 
 now, Maisie.'* 
 
 "Oh no," replied the little girl; "I must 
 finish with one first ! " 
 
 She had surely got hold of the Pauline prin- 
 ciple, " This one thing I do ! " 
 
 Three little children were left together at 
 home while their mother went on a visit, their 
 grandmother coming to stay with them part of 
 the time. 
 
 The elder little girl, who was about seven, 
 was very motherly in her manner towards her 
 1 08 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 sister and little brother, but when she said her 
 prayers at her grandmother^s knee on the first 
 evening she only prayed for her sister. 
 
 On rising from her knees her grandmother 
 expressed surprise that she made no mention 
 of the little brother, and asked her the reason. 
 ^* Why did you not ask God to take care of 
 your little brother also ? " 
 
 The child raised her finger in an emphatic 
 manner and said, *^ Oh no, grannie I He is only 
 a little one, and I can take care of him my- 
 self r^ 
 
 What could have been more confidential 
 than Innes^s prayer for his father in Ceylon. 
 " Please, God, send daddie safe back — and then 
 we'll keep him." 
 
 The same child said, '*When I say my 
 prayers I always see everything. When I say 
 
 * Deliver us from evil,* I see God going out 
 with a spear to fight Satan ; and when I say 
 
 * Forgive us our trespasses,* I see Him with a 
 big rubber cleaning a blackboard." 
 
 ''Don't close the window, mother dear/' 
 said Gwendoline softly one night when just 
 about to say her prayers. 
 109 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 **Why not, darling?" asked her mother, 
 with a smile. 
 
 ** Vm so afraid God might not hear me say 
 my prayers if you do/' replied the little one 
 wistfully. 
 
 It was the evening hour again, and Lucy 
 knelt to lisp her evening prayer. Her little 
 heart was bursting with self-satisfaction — she 
 had been so exemplary all through the day. 
 
 " O Lord ! " she said, *^ make me very good, 
 even better than I am." 
 
 ** Auntie, I love you," said little Eric; ** I 
 always say you in my prayers." 
 
 *' Thank you, dear : what do you say for 
 me?" 
 
 "I say, * Please make auntie good and let 
 her go to heaven.' " 
 
 ** God bless grandmamma, and help her to 
 speak the truth," was the prayer of a six-year- 
 old when he wanted a special blessing for his 
 saintly grandma. 
 
 Paul was out for a walk with a bigger boy, 
 who, when he began to flag, mounted him on 
 his back, to Paul's great content. '^ Dear 
 Jack," he murmured, clasping soft arms round 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 his neck, ** I hope the Lord will give you 
 strength to carry me home again." 
 
 A little fellow of six, who always preferred 
 saying his prayers by himself, was remon- 
 strated with one day by his mother, who 
 thought he had hurried over them. 
 
 '' Lloyd, I am afraid you did not pray for 
 daddy and me to-night." 
 
 *' Of course I didn't, mummie ; if I had there 
 would have been nothing for you to say at 
 bedtime : you would have said, * Lloyd has 
 prayed for me,' and it would- have made you 
 lazy." 
 
 " No, darling ; I should have found plenty to 
 say. I might have told God that Lloyd was 
 not a very good boy to-day." 
 
 **Do you mean to say you would have com- 
 plained to Jesus Christ about me ? Now I do 
 call that mean." 
 
 A dear little child was saying her prayers 
 
 aloud beside her mother's knee, and added a 
 
 prayer on her own account : ** Oh, please, dear 
 
 \ God, make me pure, absolutely pure as Epps's 
 
 cocoa." 
 
 A young friend was on one occasion shut 
 into a closet as a punishment, when he was 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 overheard uttering the unique prayer, *'0 
 Lord I now*s your chance to make me good." 
 
 My little boy, when he was between three 
 and four years old, had a toy which was wound 
 up to make it go. It was hopelessly injured, 
 his governess told him, as over and over again 
 she tried to make it go. He disappeared under 
 the table. It was evening and dark there. 
 Presently he came out with a look of heaven 
 on his face. 
 
 " Please try again ; I'm sure it will go now." 
 
 Still hopeless, she did so, and it went! 
 
 Under the table he had asked God to make it 
 
 go- 
 
 Another time, during a thunderstorm, he 
 said, " Mamma, I wish God would not talk so 
 loud." 
 
 A little girl who had prayed for several sick 
 friends, hearing of their recovery, said, ** God 
 has done all mine ; " meaning her prayers were 
 answered. 
 
 '* God made all the p^itty ickle flowers, but 
 God must 'scooze me if I don't pick zem all, 
 'coz I haven't time." 
 
 At five years, in church, when singing the 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 **Venite/' she whispered, " Mother, will God 
 *scooze me ? I don't know a bit of it ! " 
 
 ** Thank you, God, for letting me pick some 
 buttercups and daisies to-day, and you have 
 put a lot in my garden for Jesus Christ's sake. 
 Amen." 
 
 And '* Thank God for the grass and the fir- 
 trees, and the cows and the sheep, and the 
 sunshine and the shadows of the fir-trees 1" 
 was the older prayer of R. L. Stevenson. 
 
 Marion had been cautioned against the habit 
 of throwing stones, but one day so far forgot 
 herself as to do it again. Her tender conscience 
 soon reproved her, and coming home she retired 
 to a quiet corner, and with a deep-drawn sigh 
 exclaimed, *'Oh, muvver! I do wish I could 
 remember to be good always." 
 
 A dear old lady aged eighty-four was lying 
 seriously ill, and one of our little boys loved 
 to sit beside her bed. On one occasion, wish- 
 ing him to leave her, she said to him, ** Tell me 
 a nice text to think of until you return again." 
 
 He thought for a moment, and then said, 
 ** Remember now thy Creator in the days of 
 thy youth, &c," 
 
 113 H 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 The old lady could not forbear smiling at the 
 inaptness of the text to her years and state, 
 and said, '^ Dear Willie, think of one more 
 suitable to my old age." 
 
 He paused to think, and then said, '' There 
 is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked ! " 
 
 Frequently with the touchingly simple faith 
 of a little child is quaintly blended a most 
 judiciously practical turn of mind. A small 
 brother was patiently repeating after his mother 
 the well-known hymn, *^ Scatter seeds of 
 kindness " ; and, after an evident attempt to 
 grasp the full significance of the injunction, 
 inquired, ^' Is them good to eat, mamma ? '' 
 he being at that age when tangible and real- 
 istic comforts meet at times with greater 
 appreciation than those of a more spiritual 
 character. 
 
 A mother, when teaching her little daughter 
 the twenty-third Psalm, was asked, "What 
 are the paths of righteousness ? " " Well, 
 dear, you know the little tracks up and down 
 the hills where the sheep tread— those are 
 called paths." One day, when out walking 
 with her nurse, Muriel wandered away by her- 
 self up a hill. On being asked where she was 
 114 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 going, she replied, *' Fm walking in the paths of 
 righteousness." 
 
 Once while coming downstairs Hugh asked 
 to be carried, but was told he was too heavy. 
 " Auntie Kathleen," he coaxed, *' you be the 
 Good Shepherd and I will be the little lamb, 
 and you shall carry me downstairs," He 
 conquered. 
 
 A small son of mine was going away to 
 school for the first time, and for some days 
 before he was seen trying to write something 
 on a piece of paper. On the last day he gave 
 his mother a little slip on which was written : 
 
 Jesus, Friend of little children, 
 Be a Friend to mother, will you ? 
 
 He had substituted ** mother " for *' me," and 
 added *' will you " to the first two lines of a 
 hymn he knew, his idea being that when he 
 was gone there would be no one to take care 
 of her. 
 
 He asked one day whether the bells rang to 
 invite one to church or to tell that it was time 
 to go, adding, ** I am sure our cathedral bells 
 invite, don't they ? " 
 
 A little friend of mine had been told by her 
 115 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 mother that she must not kill the flies, because 
 God had made them all. 
 
 One day she was eating a piece of bread 
 and jam, and was much annoyed by a big fly 
 that was buzzing around her, attracted by the 
 jam. 
 
 At last she could stand it no longer, and 
 exclaimed, '' Way home, fly, and get a piece 
 and jam from God." 
 
 Another small mortal, seeing his grand- 
 mother kill a wasp on the window-pane, asked 
 where the flies went to when they were dead. 
 She told him they went to heaven. A few 
 days later she found him trying to kill a fly on 
 his own account. In reply to her question and 
 look of rebuke he answered gravely, " Oh, 
 g'anma, f y ^anted [wanted] heaven ! " 
 
 A lady promised her nephew of eight a 
 bicycle on his birthday. On consideration she 
 thought a tricycle would be safer for so young 
 a child. 
 
 When the day came it was put in a room 
 
 V-' jre the boy would pass through, his aunt 
 
 concealed in a corner. Instead of delight, he 
 
 was heard to exclaim, " O God, I thought 
 
 ii6 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 you knew the difference between a bicycle and 
 a tricycle ! " 
 
 A mother leant over her baby's crib. 
 
 ''What shall I ask Jesus to-night, my 
 darling ? " she said. 
 
 The sleepy blue eyes opened. *' Say, take 
 me to our bootiful home." 
 
 The mother's eyes filled with tears; she 
 could not spare her darling yet. She said no 
 more about it, but a few days later she went 
 into the nursery and found Hilda sitting up in 
 bed, with a look of indignation on her face. 
 ''And He's never come for meyel /^* she said. 
 
 Children are often more logical than grown- 
 ups. The little son of bible-loving parents 
 had a great disHke and fear of being alone in 
 the dark. They tried to reason him out of it 
 both on common-sense and religious grounds. 
 The child listened with puckering brow. 
 
 When they had finished he asked, " Do you 
 wish me to do evil, then ? " 
 
 " Why do you ask that ? " questioned his father. 
 
 " It says in the bible people ' loved dark- 
 ness because their deeds were evil,' " argued 
 the puzzled boy. 
 
 117 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 Jim's mother sent him downstairs in the 
 dark, saying, '* Don't be afraid, dear ; God is on 
 the stairs." 
 
 ** Yes," he repHed, '^ God is on the stairs, 
 and Alice is in the kitchen." 
 
 His faith in AHce was evidently the 
 stronger. 
 
 Mother had just gone upstairs in the dusk. 
 Presently she heard the little pattering feet of 
 her two-year-old boy at the foot of the stairs, 
 and then a wailing cry, ^* It's dark ! " 
 
 At once his sister of four years ran to him 
 with the exclamation, " Take my hand, Ally; 
 and it won't be dark I " 
 
 Hand in hand the little ones mounted the 
 stairs, to be clasped at the top in the arms of 
 the parents who had just learned a needed 
 heavenly lesson from their children. 
 
 Scottie had prayed for some months that 
 God would bring his father safely home from 
 Africa. One night his aunt noticed that he 
 omitted the usual petition. 
 
 ** You haven't prayed for father, dear," she 
 reminded him. 
 
 ** It's no good," replied Scottie in a weary 
 
 ii8 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 voice, getting up from his kaees ; ** father never 
 comes home. Fm tired of praying for him." 
 
 *' God doesn^t make me a good boy ! Pappa 
 makes me a good boy !" a baby of two stopped 
 to reason in the mid'dle of his prayers one 
 night. ^' He whips me ! I won^t pray to God 
 any more ! " 
 
 As might well be anticipated, three mysterious 
 beings engross much of a child's speculative 
 musing— the Creator, the Saviour, and the 
 Evil Spirit. With regard to the former 
 our conventional reverence is frequently 
 shocked by the surmises and questions of 
 the small inquirers, but in these matters a 
 child's thought is invariably free from 
 irreverence, and its quest of truth ought 
 not to be roughly checked as idle curiosity, 
 but should be met with the seriousness we 
 should give to an older inquirer. With 
 regard to the Spirit of Evil, it seems to me 
 an unhappy mistake that we should begin 
 to darken a child's bright world at the very 
 dawn with the thought and name of Satan. 
 That knowledge will intrude itself only too 
 soon ; but in our zeal or our thoughtlessness 
 we often contrive to make our children 
 119 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 deplorable little prigs and Jesuitical 
 apologists. 
 
 Emmie had overheard the remark, during a 
 thunderstorm, that the thunder was God's 
 voice ; and on seeing a grown-up person looking 
 frightened as the storm increased, she said, 
 ** If God lets us speak to Him, we must let Him 
 speak to us too." 
 
 A rather pretty idea concerning the stars was 
 the following from a little boy of my acquaint- 
 ance. He thought the stars might be the places 
 where God put His fingers through: This 
 reminds one of the words of David : *'The 
 firmament sheweth His handiwork." 
 
 The thoughts of children are a continual 
 source of surprise and enjoyment to those who 
 watch their development, and the independence 
 of each soul is shown by the quaint and unex- 
 pected ways in which they are expressed. For 
 instance, the little boy who made the following 
 remarks must have attained, by his own line of 
 reasoning, a very vivid realisation of the 
 marvellous patience of the Almighty God. 
 Standing by a window watching the flies on 
 the pane, he said : 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 " Didn^t you say God made everything, 
 mother ? '* 
 
 *^ Yes, my boy, everything." 
 
 " Then He made the flies ? " 
 
 ^^ Yes, even flies." 
 
 After a momentary silence he remarked : 
 
 *' FiddHng work, making flies ! " 
 
 Doris (aged four) : ** What a horrid cake I " 
 Jim (aged 14) : *' Oh, Doris ! don't say that ! 
 God gave us the cake." 
 
 Doris : '* Yes, but God didn't make it ! " 
 
 Telling Frances that God gives us everything, 
 Isa said, ** Oh yes I and He gives us baked 
 apples, only we bake them." 
 
 A cousin of ours was taking charge of her 
 nephews and nieces. Says preaching baby to 
 practical baby, **Do you know, Helen, God 
 could make you die this very minute if He 
 pleased ? " 
 
 Practical baby, not at all scared from her 
 bread and butter : ^^ I don't think He could ; I'm 
 having my tea." 
 
 My little brother, on being told that God 
 made the world and everything in it, said, ** If 
 God made everything, what does Mrs. God do?" 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 A little girl whose finger was cut was told by 
 her sister ^* Not to cry, for as fast as tlie bleed 
 runs out, God puts bleed in." 
 
 A little niece who loved to hear of the Great 
 Healer one day startled her aunt by saying, 
 " Aunty, if we ask Jesus to make grandma 
 better, won't He come down and heal her ? " 
 But, without waiting for a reply, she added 
 solemnly, ** Only He would break His legs 
 coming down." 
 
 On another occasion, when she saw a picture 
 of Cupid suspended in mid-air with the familiar 
 missive in his hand, her comment was, ''Oh, 
 look at the wee boy ! he is taking up a letter to 
 Jesus." 
 
 When listening to the story of the Crucifixion 
 she was much touched with the words of our 
 Lord, '* I thirst '^ ; and on hearing of the sponge 
 filled with vinegar being given to Jesus, she put 
 her hand up to the narrator's face as if to make 
 her pause in the recital and said, '' If good men 
 had been there they would have given Jesus a 
 drink out of a tumblery 
 
 Little Phil, aged five, was grieved and 
 horrified by the story of the Crucifixion. '' Oh, 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 mother," he cried, '*if father had been there, 
 he would have sworded off their heads ! " 
 
 The same passionate revolt filled the heart 
 of the heroic Crillon as in his old age he 
 sat in church listening to the story of the 
 world's tragedy. Unable at last to con- 
 trol himself, he sprang to his feet and cried 
 aloud, "Ou etais-tu, Crillon?" *' Oh, 
 Crillon, where wast thou ? " 
 
 So, too, spoke a fierce Iroquois Indian, 
 Charlevoix tells us in his " Histoire de la 
 Nouvelle France," when he heard the 
 narrative of the Saviour's sufferings : 
 '' Oh ! if I had been there ! " 
 
 But centuries earlier still, according to the 
 old Irish records. King Conor Mac Nessa 
 uttered almost the same words. The 
 king had been wounded by a ball from a 
 sling. It had lodged in his head, and 
 the physicians had allowed it to remain, 
 warning him, however, that all violent 
 exercise, anger, or excitement would be 
 dangerous to his life. For years he 
 enjoyed good health until the very day of 
 the Crucifixion, when, in consequence of 
 the shaking of the earth and the darkening 
 123 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 of the sun, he inquired of his Druid the 
 cause of this strange perturbation of 
 nature. The Druid informed him that 
 Christ Jesus, the Son of the Hving God, 
 was at that moment being crucified by the 
 Jews. ** What crime has he committed ? " 
 cried Conor. '* None," said the Druid. 
 ** Then they are slaying him innocently?" 
 **They are,'* replied the Druid. Then in 
 a sudden outburst of fury the king drew 
 his sword and rushed out to the wood 
 opposite his palace door, where he began 
 to hew down the young trees, exclaiming 
 in his rage, '* Oh 1 if I were present it is 
 thus I would cut down the enemies of the 
 innocent man ! " In his rage the ball was 
 dislodged, the blood burst from the 
 wound, and King Conor fell dead. ** He 
 has been counted in Ireland ever since as 
 the first man who died for the sake of 
 Christ."* 
 
 In a Sunday-school class a teacher was 
 trying to make clear the lesson on the com- 
 forting presence of the Living One. It was a 
 
 * O'Curry : Lectures on the MS. Materials of Ancient 
 Irish History. 
 
 124 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 thoughtful Httle lad who explained, '*We can^t 
 see Jesus, because He is in our hearts." 
 
 One day my little daughter was playing 
 with a magnet puzzle which seemed to interest 
 her greatly, and lying on my invalid couch I 
 watched the sweet face and earnest eyes 
 absorbed in a somewhat difficult task. The 
 same evening, in coming to wish me good- 
 night and have the ** cuddle-talk " which chil- 
 dren love so much, my Theodora whispered, 
 " Mother, I did enjoy domg the puzzle this 
 afternoon : I thought the magnet was just like 
 our Lord Jesus Christ, for He is as true as 
 steel, you know, and He draws all true hearts 
 to Himself." 
 
 A little boy of seven years repeated to me 
 one day the text, ''The blood of Jesus Christ 
 cleanseth us from all sin." Then, after think- 
 ing for a little, he said, '^ I see how it is : the 
 blood of Jesus Christ is God's indiarubber ; 
 when it is rubbed over the page of the book 
 where our sins are written, it takes them all 
 away." 
 
 The other day I was talking to my child 
 about her father, who had been suddenly taken 
 25 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 from us, and telling her how much good he 
 had done in the world, how beautiful his 
 character was, and how everybody loved him. 
 She looked up quickly and said, '' Daddy got 
 all that from Jesus Christ, you know." 
 
 ** Can Jesus do everything ? " inquired a 
 six-year-old laddie. '* Yes, dear,'^ said his 
 aunt. "Can He really : can He undo knots ? " 
 
 It was Christmas-time, and the children 
 were wild with delight over all the manifold 
 joys which that season brings. 
 
 But the chief interest centred round the wee 
 maiden lying in mother's arms, the baby of 
 four weeks old. " Here, baby ! " said Joyce, 
 as she generously tried to press a piece of 
 biscuit into baby's mouth. Baby opened her 
 mouth, not, alas ! in gratitude, but to protest 
 in a vigorous cry. 
 
 '*0h, darling, baby can't take that," exclaimed 
 mother. At that moment up comes the sturdy, 
 toddling brother, and presses a chocolate, very 
 moist and half-melted, against poor baby's lips ; 
 and mother has hard work to keep these 
 untimely attentions in check, and to make the 
 resentful givers understand that baby really 
 cannot eat what they can, as she has no teeth. 
 126 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 This sad fact subdues them for a moment. 
 Then, after a pause, in which she tries to 
 grasp the full significance of baby's deficiency, 
 Joyce says half-reproachfully : 
 
 ''Jesus might have sent us one wiv teef.'* 
 
 There was no thought of irreverence in the 
 words. It was only an inexplicable mystery 
 to the small mind. It seemed such a pity that 
 the Lord had sent baby unfinished, so to speak. 
 
 Will some of our perplexities be as easily 
 solved in heaven, I wonder, as Joyce's diffi- 
 culty will be before long ? 
 
 A little girl of three, having been accused 
 by nurse to her mother of having deliberately 
 pulled a button off her coat, stoutly announced, 
 " It was not I that did it, it was Satan ; " on 
 this occasion giving the author of all evil 
 rather more than his due. 
 
 y " Pi'^Jj God, make Satan a good boy, 'cos he 
 do make Nancy so naughty," was a little one's 
 penitent prayer after she had been cross. 
 
 Isobel had some lovely fungi in her hands 
 that she was carrying home. Suddenly, with 
 one sweep of her little hand, Leslie broke off 
 their frail loveliness. 
 
 127 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 '* You wicked little girl," said father, moved 
 by IsobeFs distress, *' what made you do that ? " 
 " Oh, father I " wept Leslie, '* it was the devil." 
 
 A lady, when teaching a class of poor chil- 
 dren, put the question, *' If boys and girls do 
 not love and follow Jesus, and follow Satan 
 instead, what will he do for them ? " 
 
 ** Burn them ! " shouted a little urchin. 
 
 A little boy and girl whose mother was ill 
 and inaccessible were overheard by their aunt 
 holding the following pathetic consultation on 
 the subject of their nurse^s unkindness to them : 
 
 ** What shall we do ? " said the girl hope- 
 lessly. 
 
 " Fm going to , ask father to send nurse 
 away," replied her brother sturdily. 
 
 *' What shall you do if he won't ? " 
 
 '^Then ril ask God to help us." 
 
 **But perhaps God won't send her away." 
 
 *^ Well, then," said the little chap in desperate 
 earnest, ^Tll see what the Devil can do for 
 us." 
 
 After proper investigation nurse was dis- 
 missed. 
 
 A little fellow about five years old wished 
 
 128 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 he could be God just for five minutes. On 
 being asked what he would do, he said, " I 
 would kill the Devil.'' 
 
 Jack was lying on the rug one Sunday, medi- 
 tating ; his aunt had been reading to him. He 
 looked up and said, ** Auntie, who mends hell- 
 fire ? " 
 
 Edith was a little mite about three years 
 old who had some strange theological fancies. 
 ** Mother," she asked one day in deep, solemn 
 tones, '* has the Devil got a Saviour ? " 
 
 The answer is not recorded. Whatever it 
 may have been, it is pleasant to remember 
 that touching old legend which tells how 
 the Neckan sat playing his golden harp 
 on a boulder in the river at evening, and 
 the children of the minister coming by 
 mocked at him, saying, ** Why do you 
 play on your harp, Neckan ? Do you not 
 know that you can never be saved ? " and 
 the poor Neckan ceased playing and sing- 
 ing, and began to weep bitterly. But the 
 children went home and told their father, 
 who reproved them and sent them back 
 with a message of comfort. '* Do not cry, 
 129 I 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 poor Neckan/' said the children ; '^ father 
 says that your Redeemer liveth too." And 
 the Neckan sat on the rock and joyfully 
 played on his harp till long after sunset. 
 
 Equally beautiful — it could scarcely be more 
 beautiful — is the legend referred to by the 
 Count de Maistre : '* A saint, whose very 
 name I have forgotten, had a vision, in 
 which he saw Satan standing before the 
 throne of God, and listening, he heard the 
 evil spirit say, * Why hast Thou condemned 
 me who have offended Thee but once, 
 whilst Thou savest thousands of men who 
 have offended Thee many times ? ' God 
 answered him, * Hast thou once asked 
 pardon of me ? ^ . . . . What matter 
 whether the saint had or had not heard 
 the sublime words I have quoted ? The 
 great point is to know that pardon is re- 
 fused only to him who does not ask it." 
 
 Infinitely preferable and wiser has been the 
 training which underlies the following 
 incident : 
 
 Willie, aged four, came to his mamma one 
 day with the complaint that sister Nellie (who 
 was busy making cake down in the kitchen) 
 130 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 would not give him something to eat which he 
 had asked for. 
 
 Mamma generally considered it wise to up- 
 hold her daughter's authority with the little 
 ones, as she had often to leave them in her 
 care, but to-day she remembered that her little 
 son had eaten very little at the last meal ; so 
 she told him to ask Sissy very nicely and say 
 that mamma had said he might ask again. 
 
 Then off he ran, but as he trotted down 
 the kitchen stairs he called out, ''Now me's 
 brought some contradingtion for you." Need- 
 less to say, he soon returned with a very down- 
 cast face, saying Sissy still would not give him 
 what he wanted. 
 
 Then mamma told him she had heard what 
 he said to Nellie, and was not surprised that 
 she had refused him, ending by asking why he 
 had spoken like that when he had been told to 
 ask very nicely. 
 
 He stood looking down for a few moments, 
 then raising his lovely blue eyes to her face 
 with a most penitent look, replied, *' Me really 
 didn't mean to, mamma, but the little man in- 
 side rat just made me do it." 
 
 In the following group of Sayings the effect 
 131 
 
\ 
 
 CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 of bible-class lessons and bible reading is 
 very conspicuous. In most instances it is 
 evident that the young people have carried 
 away the lesson and retained it, though 
 their application of what they have learnt 
 is more amusing than edifying. That, if we 
 regard it rightly, is so much to their credit. 
 
 Economy was the prescribed subject of a 
 little girl's essay. She was much puzzled for 
 an example, and mother suggested the well- 
 known incident of the Queen and her bonnet- 
 strings. 
 
 Suddenly the small scholar looked up 
 radiantly and said, " I know a better, mother — 
 the Creation. It was made out of nothings and 
 was very good." 
 
 A mother asked her little dauglrter who was 
 the first man. She replied, ^^Adam." Then, 
 turning to the little boy of three, **And who 
 was the first woman ? " ^' Madam ! " came the 
 prompt reply.* 
 
 * A very similar story appears in " Lighter Moments, 
 from the Notebook of Bishop Walsham How " (Isbister) ; 
 but if this reply was given once, it has probably been given 
 hundreds of times. It is more obvious than Httle Tom 
 
 Hood's guess that the name of Noah's wife was Joan 
 
 of Arc. 
 
 132 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 A little boy of four years old wavS sitting on 
 his sister^s lap while she was reading to two 
 elder children Drummond's charming little 
 book about a cricket match, which he takes as 
 typical of our life on earth. 
 
 A week after this event, the fall of Adam and 
 Eve was read at family prayers. The little 
 boy looked up into his mother^s face and said, 
 *^ Adam and Eve were both bowled out first 
 ball, weren^t they, mamma?" Few people 
 would imagine that a child so young could so 
 thoroughly grasp the author^s true meaning. 
 
 Teaching the story of the fall in a mission 
 school, a lady asked her class where Adam 
 and Eve hid after they disobeyed God. 
 
 One wee lassie smiled and said, ^* Please, 
 up an entry ! " 
 
 Needless to add, that was her idea of a hiding 
 place. 
 
 R. had been listening to the story of the 
 serpent in the Garden of Eden, and was told 
 that the reptile was Satan. The little fellow 
 then said, 'T saw wee Satan peeking [meaning 
 creeping] about among my feet." 
 
 My little maiden of four was to have a tea- 
 133 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 party. '* Tell me your friends^ names," I said, 
 ^^and I will write to them.'^ 
 
 ** There is first my dear Cain and Abel, and 
 darling Samuel," she replied ; and I heard her 
 afterwards gravely telling her aunt that I had 
 asked them, but they ^* could not come," as 
 Samuel had influenza (of which she has had a 
 lion's share in her small life) and Cain was 
 busy killing Abel ! 
 
 Two little people had a friend who was going 
 to the Holy Land and Egypt. One of them 
 wondered if he ^* would find any broken bits of 
 Moses* * Tables of Stone,* " and the other 
 thought that perhaps their friend might '*get a 
 sail in Peter's boat," and thought it must be 
 *'very nice to be going to Canaan." 
 
 Two or three Sundays ago I was explaining 
 what a long training Moses had to fit him for 
 his work, and how he was eighty years old 
 when he led that great army out of Egypt. 
 
 **But,** interrupted little Alfred excitedly, 
 ** my grandmother's eighty-two, and she can go 
 up hill like anything." 
 
 While teaching the two elder children the ten 
 commandments, the fourth being the lesson of 
 134 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 the day, Norman said, ** Mamma, Gyp is our 
 cartle, isn't he ? " — Gyp being a small Scotch 
 terrier and the only beastie ^^ aboot the 
 hoose." 
 
 A little girl aged six was one afternoon at 
 the washhand basin, washing her hands. Her 
 father, coming in on the same errand, was about 
 to ignore her presence, when he was thus 
 promptly called to order for his seeming breach 
 of etiquette : ^* Father, you should be like 
 Moses." 
 
 ^'How?" 
 
 *^ Because he let the women to the water 
 first, and drove the men away." 
 
 Our embryo divine of seven delights in 
 recounting the ever-fascinating bible stories 
 with original variations. This is how Jonah is 
 '' handled " : 
 
 '* No, Jonah wasn't 'zackly a bad man, only 
 he didn't want to go and teach the children 
 which was their right hands and lefts." 
 
 He is not very clear on this point himself, so 
 this is given out with a fine air of scorn. 
 
 " So, of course, the whale swallowed him ; 
 but I 'spect he felt pretty tight, for he soon 
 began to cough, and cough, till up came Jonah, 
 135 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 and he wasn't hurted the least bit ; but I think 
 he must have been very dirty. And so — v^ell, 
 that's all about Jonah." 
 
 A class of little boys had been having lessons 
 on Elijah. The chariot of fire had been the 
 subject of the last lesson. When their teacher 
 asked, " What did Elisha say when Elijah left 
 him ? " one small boy said, *' Please, teacher, 
 I know : he said, * My father, my father, the 
 chariot of Israel and the horsemen, they are 
 off!'" 
 
 Paul interrupted a story of Daniel and the 
 pulse, which was described as porridge to 
 simplify it. '* Was it Quaker oats or Waver- 
 ley ? " he asked, mindful of recent experi- 
 ences. 
 
 One of our boys was most anxious to be 
 permitted to work his mother's sewing machine. 
 Once, after listening attentively to the story of 
 Daniel's deliverance from the lions' den, he 
 asked eagerly, ^^And did his mother let him 
 work the sewing machine after that ? " 
 
 A lady, who was conducting a class of boys 
 in a Sunday-school in the High Street of Edin- 
 136 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 burgh, gave for a lesson the call of Samuel in 
 the night. 
 
 The small urchins began a discussion, one 
 boy^s version being that the gas went out, and 
 Samuel was left in the dark : another ex- 
 claimed, ** It was naething o* the kind ; it was 
 just a paraffin lamp." 
 
 When little Ada, aged three, had been told 
 the story of Lot's wife being turned into a pillar 
 of salt, she asked her mother anxiously, ** Is all 
 salt made of ladies ? " 
 
 Later, when six years old, she was called one 
 Sunday, '* Come, Ada, and learn your cate- 
 chism," whereupon she answered roguishly, ** If 
 it's for mCf it ought to be a kittychism ! " 
 
 A little nephew and niece of mine were 
 playing in the garden, when their mother 
 observed that they had quarrelled and the 
 younger, a boy of three years, was crying. 
 
 On going down to inquire the cause he said, 
 ** She called me a bad name, mother, and Vm 
 not that." 
 
 The culprit confessed that she had pointed 
 at her little brother and said, " Go up, thou 
 bald-head, go up, thou bald-head," to him. 
 137 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 She was told then that the children were 
 being taken to the Zoo, and she should be left 
 at home, when she smartly replied, '* If I went 
 perhaps the bears would eat me ! " 
 
 I well remember the following incident of 
 early days in the old North-country home. 
 When my eldest brother (an exceptionally 
 gifted man, who scarcely lived to middle age) 
 was a very little boy his mother had occasion 
 to correct him for some fault, telling him that 
 his parents could not love him so well if he 
 did such things. He thought a moment, then 
 gravely repHed, ** When my father and mother 
 forsake me, the Lord will take me up ! " 
 
 Another little child was sitting on a stool at 
 her mother's knee, learning a short prayer. 
 On former Sunday afternoons the reward for 
 a well-learnt text had been a French plum. 
 Winnie, as she sat clasping her fat little hands 
 on her fat little knees, chanced to catch sight 
 of the bottle with its white label, and the dear, 
 sticky, black things inside. 
 
 " I am thy servant," she repeated dreamily; 
 ** I am thy servant : give me, give me — a plum T^ 
 A plum was so much more desirable than mere 
 dull ^* understanding." 
 
 138 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 '* Now, what would you have done, Jim," 
 asked a young teacher, giving a lesson on the 
 Flood, ** if you had been there ? " 
 
 ** Taken a twam," said five-year-old Jim 
 wisely. 
 
 L. lived in Kensington. He was naughty, and 
 as a punishment his mother shut him in a 
 room and went out. As she returned she saw 
 her boy leaning as far out of the window as he 
 could, shouting, ** Oh I wretched man that I am, 
 who shall deliver me?" 
 
 It is very interesting to get at the real 
 thoughts of a young child ; you find sometimes 
 that they have very practical minds. 
 
 Eric had said his text, *' But now I am a 
 man I have put away childish things," and 
 remarked, *• I think it was too bad of Paul to 
 put away his childish things, auntie ; he might 
 have give them to another little boy." 
 
 We remember a girlie who was often taken 
 by her grandma to visit the graves of little 
 ones dear to her. 
 
 One day, much to grandma's sorrow, she 
 found her girlie had told an untruth ; so, to 
 improve the occasion, the story of Ananias and 
 139 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 Sapphira was related. Judge of the narrator^s 
 feelings when the little one asked, ** Are they 
 buried in Rosebank ? " the cemetery she was 
 in the habit of walking in. 
 
 Doubtless she thought of visiting their 
 graves ! 
 
 At a class of boys I had in the Sunday-school, 
 when they were reading aloud the Gospel one 
 of them read, ^^ And when he had agreed with 
 the labourers for a penny a day," in a tone of 
 astonishment, and in the same breath, in a tone 
 of disgust, '* How mean, teacher ! '* 
 
 A little girl, on hearing the parable of the 
 Prodigal Son, remarked, " I don^t believe a 
 whole calf could be put on a dish." 
 
 **Who was Father Christmas^s father?" 
 asked a teacher of a child of seven, thinking 
 to puzzle him. 
 
 Like a flash came back the answer, **I should 
 think, like Joshua, he was the son of Nun" 
 [none]. 
 
 Last Christmas morning the teacher ot an 
 infant class asked a child, ^* What day is this ? " 
 ** To-day is Jesus's birthday, and yesterday 
 was Sammy's," he answered. 
 140 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 The same children were asked, " Who was 
 Joseph's father ? " Their faces were all blank, 
 until the teacher said ^' Jacob," when little 
 May brightened up, saying, **We get cakes 
 from Jacob " (the biscuit manufacturer). 
 
 Tom was present when his aunt, speaking 
 of Tennyson's death, said, '' After all, he was 
 an old man; it was time for him to be in 
 Abraham's bosom." *^ Abraham's bosom must 
 be nearly full now," said Tom ; ^* perhaps he 
 will have to go into Isaac's." 
 
 Lillie, seeing in a familiar hymn the line — 
 Cherubim and Seraphim falling down before Thee, 
 
 said, " Mother, was Cheru the boy ? " 
 
 ^*What do you mean, dear?" asked her 
 
 mother. 
 
 ** Because, you see, Sarah was the girl ! " 
 Evidently she thought that the Bim and 
 
 Phim families were the worshippers. 
 
 A paterfamilias, having been in Leeds, found 
 it impossible to reach his home in Scotland 
 except by travelling with the Saturday night 
 express, which landed him at his destination 
 about eight o'clock next morning. One Sunday 
 morning, some weeks later, he found his two 
 141 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 boys, aged respectively five and two, driving a 
 railway express improvised from the drawer of 
 a wardrobe. 
 
 " Boys," he said, " trains don't go on 
 Sundays/' 
 
 '*Oh, this is the Leeds train," said number 
 one, and went on with his mimic journey at 
 full speed. 
 
 *' Willie ! didn't I tell you not to play with 
 that cart on Sunday ? " 
 
 Willie remembered watching his father drive 
 off that morning to one of his appointments in 
 the country. 
 
 "Yes, mother," he replied; ** but this is a 
 preacher^ s cart." 
 
 Once, after a lesson on being unselfish, one 
 child had been given a piece of paper on which 
 to scribble, when her brother of six made a 
 practical application : " I suppose, baby, you 
 won't be self-denying and give me that paper ?" 
 
 Once a little girl about seven years of age 
 was at school, and seemed very eager to learn 
 and try to understand all her teacher said to 
 her. She was exceedingly fond of dolls, and 
 her mother had lately bought her a new one, 
 142 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 which she kept carefully. One day, while her 
 teacher was trying to explain to her class 
 of little ones about the well-known hymn, 
 *^Ye must be born again," this bright -faced 
 child looked up eagerly and said, ** Then Til 
 keep my new doll until I am born again." 
 
 One day a wee man remarked to his sister, 
 who was nearly six years old, ** I'm going to 
 be a minister and pweach to the people." 
 
 " Well," she said, '' it is one of the safest of 
 trades." 
 
 Some of their uncles are soldiers. When 
 the girl was between four and five years old her 
 grand-aunt read her Matthew xxv. Her com- 
 ment was, **When I am on the right hand, and 
 when I see you on the left, auntie, FU be so 
 sorry." 
 
 " I hope, Ernest, that you will come one day 
 and see my home," said a lady to a small boy 
 from whom she was soon to part. 
 
 " It will have to be soon," said Ernest, " for 
 you might be dead." 
 
 ** Do you think me so very old ? " 
 
 '*Yes." 
 
 "Well, if we should never meet again on 
 earth, I hope we shall meet in heaven." 
 143 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 "Oh," said Ernest, *'but there are two 
 places ! " 
 
 One Sunday forenoon a boy aged three 
 years old was playing : he looked up and asked, 
 '* Ja-Joe, if a sailor dies at sea, is he buried in 
 the sea ? '* 
 
 Ja-Joe answered '* Yes." 
 
 "And do the fishes eat him, Ja-Joe ? " 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 Then a pause, when he said, "Ja-Joe, Vm 
 not going to be a sailor, because on the resur- 
 rection morning they will have such a scramble 
 out of the fishes' bread-baskets." 
 
 Kate, aged eight, had been promised sixpence 
 to spend at the toy-shop. When she was ready 
 to go for her walk, her mother was unable, for 
 some reason, to give it her. " You shall have 
 it another time, dear," she said. 
 
 Kate was very angry, and sulked all the 
 rest of the morning. At last her governess 
 said, " It is very naughty of you to be so cross, 
 Katie, when mother gives you so many six- 
 pences. Think of the poor children who never 
 have any pennies ! " 
 
 Kate became very dignified, and said in a 
 most injured voice, "You need not think it's 
 144 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 the sixpence I am troubling about, Miss Smith; 
 I am only grieved to find that my mother does 
 not keep her promises ! " 
 
 One day Kate's elder brother, who was a 
 great tease, said, ^* You don't know your 
 Scripture history a bit, Kitty ! " 
 
 " Indeed I do," the small maiden replied. 
 
 *' Oh no, you don't," went on Master Gordon : 
 ** you don't even know who were Ruth's father 
 and mother ! " 
 
 ** Yes, Gordon, I know quite well," she 
 answered indignantly, '^only I never can per- 
 nounce those hard names." 
 
 The remaining Sayings fall naturally into 
 the group which is conveniently called 
 miscellaneous, though several of them are 
 more or less closely related to one or other 
 of the preceding sections. 
 
 A little six-year-old nephew of mine, who 
 is very fond of modelling men and women 
 with pastry, arrived at a knowledge of the 
 universal fatherhood of God in a very un- 
 expected way. He and his sister were dining 
 with their parents, when the girl spoke rather 
 authoritatively to the servant. Their mother 
 145 K 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 took an opportunity to reprove her, and finished 
 by saying : 
 
 ** You know, Nancy dear, you must not look 
 down on any one because she is a servant. 
 God made us all, and He might have made you 
 a servant had He chosen." 
 
 The boy then thoughtfully remarked, ^^ Yes, 
 Nancy, don't you know we are all God's 
 pastry ? " 
 
 The sequel to this was rather pretty, for a 
 day or two after he was watching with disgust 
 some- boys playing in the mud, when some one 
 recommended him to join them, *^ because you 
 know, Arthur, we are all God's pastry." 
 
 I expect the colour of some of his own pastry 
 occurred to his mind, for after a moment's 
 thought he answered, ** Yes, so we are ; but 
 I'm sure they are made of much dirtier 
 pastry than we are, and I won't play with 
 them." 
 
 A practical illustration of love was given by 
 a Httle boy in a London omnibus. Sitting on 
 his grandmamma's knee, he saw a nigger 
 passing along the street. " Me not like black 
 man, nasty black man," began the child. 
 
 ** You must not say that," instructed the 
 146 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 grandmother: ** black man's very nice; you 
 should like black man." 
 
 There was silence for a moment, then the 
 child looked up with a winning smile : *' Would 
 you kiss black man, grandma ? " 
 
 A funny remark was made by a little boy 
 who passed the cake to a lady caller and said : 
 " Please have some." She refused, and he 
 said, ** Oh ! please do ; it is getting so dry." 
 
 When one of the children was on a visit 
 she was invited to take some gingerbread. 
 She would not, and the lady said, '* Do take 
 some, it is really very nice." 
 
 Little Margaret said, " It's not so werry 
 nice if you don't like it." 
 
 " I wonder which of us will die first ! " said 
 a little boy pensively to his sister. 
 
 *^ You will," said the little girl briskly, ** 'cos 
 you are the eldest." 
 
 *^ No," answered her brother, not anxious for 
 the privilege ; *^ ladies first." 
 
 A little fellow aged two years and nine 
 months got into a bad habit of refusing to say 
 good -night. His aunt wished to make him 
 147 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 prove himself wrong, and the argument got to 
 *^ Who is older, you or I ? '* 
 
 Promptly he said, " 1/' 
 
 *^ Very well, then ; you should teach me what 
 is right : what should I say before I go to 
 bed ? »' 
 
 With a slight pause he said, ** You* prayers,'' 
 then laughed most merrily. 
 
 The lecture collapsed. 
 
 A little girl was corrected by her mother 
 for something which she did not consider 
 wrong, and after some time she relieved her 
 mind by saying, ** I love you, mamma, but I 
 don't like you." 
 
 A little boy (oetaL five) once told me he didn't 
 think it was any use for him to begin writing 
 a diary, as he could not write the past years 
 of his life ; but when he had a little boy he 
 should write his diary from the time he was 
 born, and then give it him when he was old 
 enough. 
 
 It is comical to see the practical side of a 
 child's mind in its developments. My little 
 girl was only two and a half when she first 
 experienced the delight of a garden ** all for 
 her very own." 
 
 T48 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 " And will you plant potatoes in it ? " asked 
 one inquiring friend. 
 
 ** Yes," said the small maiden, with a gleam, 
 at that early age, of a housewifely sense of 
 appropriate association ; '^ yes, I will plant 
 potatoes and gravy in my garden ! " 
 
 This same small damsel shortly before gave 
 her mother a most effectual check which could 
 not well be ignored. The latter, with the 
 usual rather provoking tendency of a grown-up 
 person, was apt to seize on minutes of com- 
 parative quietude and docility, and try to 
 improve the shining hour (or say, rather, 
 moment) by serious and edifying admoni- 
 tion. 
 
 I cannot quite remember whether the — 
 sermonette, shall we call it ? — on this occasion 
 was prompted by some wrongdoing, or whether 
 it was simply the effort of a young parent to 
 point a useful moral. However, encouraged 
 by rather unusual quiescence on the part of 
 the auditor, she must have exceeded the very 
 limited patience of that small person, for at 
 length, in the most indescribably coaxing and 
 altogether irresistible way, she was interrupted 
 by '* ^ Amen * now, mamma ! " and who could 
 continue after that broadest of hints ? 
 149 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 One of our little girls was looking out of the 
 window, and noticed a lady passing who was 
 wearing a respirator. She remarked, " How 
 silly ! she would not bite," evidently thinking 
 it was a sort of muzzle. 
 
 A little fellow was looking carefully at his 
 baby sister, and said, ** Poor baby, she has no 
 teeth at all ; you should take her to Mr. M.^s," 
 mentioning the family dentist. 
 
 A little girl walking along a road carrying a 
 pitcher of milk made up to a big, strong-looking 
 man, who was going in the same direction. 
 She looked up in his face and said, ** If I was 
 a strong man like you, I know what I would 
 do for a little girl walking beside him. I would 
 offer to carry her pitcher." 
 
 Children's candour is often very inconvenient 
 to their elders. A gentleman kept very secret 
 from his neighbours what his business was in 
 London. Finding his little boy alone one day, 
 a friend said to the child, *^ Papa has gone to 
 the City to make you * bread and cheese,' I 
 suppose ? " 
 
 '*No," was the grave reply; ** papa make§ 
 the finest varnish in the world." 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 "Oh, do you think Miss will die? " said 
 
 a sweet little girl of four years old, referring to 
 a great friend of her own who had been taken 
 ill. 
 
 " Oh, I hope not ! " said her sister of five 
 years cheerfully, and then added in a consoling 
 tone, " but if she does, it will at least be put in 
 the newspapers ! " 
 
 Little worldling ! 
 
 '* Poor Uncle Horace,'' said Isobel, after a 
 visit to an English rectory, " he gets so sad : 
 he wants all the people in the parish to go to 
 heaven, and they won^t go." 
 
 A little girl was alone, amusing herself in an 
 unusually quiet way. Her grandmamma, noticing 
 this, called, '^ What are you doing, Lizzie ? '* 
 '^ Up to mistif, gannie," the little maid replied. 
 
 " I felt a d'op of rain," said a tiny urchin, 
 as he trotted down the lane by his mother's 
 side. 
 
 '' Really ? / did not," said she. 
 
 " How could you,v when it came on my nose ? " 
 was the reply. 
 
 " That's for 'ow," said a small church-goer, 
 popping her penny into the rector's hand instead 
 151 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 of the offertory-bag which he was handing to 
 her, and looking up admiringly into his amused 
 face. 
 
 Very ludicrous is the infantile assumption of 
 manliness. A little fellow was helping — I beg 
 his pardon, being helped by — a girl to house 
 turnips, and paused with a single **neep" in 
 both hands to say gloatingly, " You an' me's 
 a richt ma-a-n, Mary," rolling the a-a like a 
 sweet morsel. 
 
 He had often been told that his father was 
 away **workin' for meal," so one day he set out 
 to bear his part. Finding the men carting 
 manure, he unhesitatingly began to turn over 
 the unsavoury heap on his own account, and on 
 being somewhat peremptorily asked '* what he 
 was daein' there," announced with an air of con- 
 scious but unappreciated rectitude, ** Howkin' 
 for meal." 
 
 There was a small man who was always 
 wanting a set of wickets, and one day, to his 
 surprise, his mother got him one, and among 
 other little boys he spent the day at cricket. In 
 the evening his mother went to bring him home, 
 and seeing that Bobby looked tired, she said, 
 152 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 * You must be exhausted ; shall I carry your 
 bat and wickets ? " 
 
 " Oh no," replied the boy ; " I'm not tired; but 
 if you carry me, I shall manage to carry the 
 wickets." 
 
 A little friend, seven years of age, cried 
 bitterly in the evening, because '* Mother has 
 not even let me have one little grumble to-day," 
 and once when she had behaved badly at table, 
 she looked up at her father (who was looking 
 solemn as the occasion required) and said sadly, 
 " I wish mother had married a man who did not 
 frown at me ! " 
 
 A sweet little girl seUing artificial flowers to 
 us at a bazaar showed her conscientious mind 
 by saying, '^ They are a penny each ; but you 
 know they are not alive ; they are stuffed." 
 
 A father, before punishing his little son, who 
 had been naughty and stubborn, said they would 
 both pray. The father did so, and then the 
 little boy said, ** Please, God, give me a better 
 father." 
 
 Little Gracie's father is a slater. One very 
 wet day she met an acquaintance of her 
 mother's, who said to her, ** Well, Gracie, we 
 153 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 will need a very big umbrella to-day, to cover 
 up the hole in the sky." 
 
 " Oh no," replied the child ; "Fll just tell my 
 daddy to go up and mend it." 
 
 A gentleman, standing in front of a mirror 
 arranging his hair, was asked by his little 
 daughter, '* Does 'ou sink 'ouself vessy 
 pitty?" 
 
 The same child, when her father appeared 
 in his volunteer uniform, inquired, ** Is 'ou 
 playing at being a soljer ? " 
 
 One of the children had been taking great 
 notice of a young baby. She said afterwards, 
 ** That baby's face was so hot, it had melted its 
 eyebrows quite off." 
 
 One little fellow was ill and feverish, and 
 said, *^ Oh, I am so hot ; I am sure I should fizz 
 if you put me in water ! " 
 
 ** We are both going to start a hobby," said 
 two small boys to me once. One was seven 
 years old and the other eight. 
 
 **That is right," I replied; ^*it is a good 
 thing for boys to have a hobby. What is yours 
 to be?" 
 
 154 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 ''We are writing books," was the prompt 
 reply. 
 
 *' Indeed ! " I replied, as gravely as possible ; 
 " and what are your books called ? " 
 
 ''Mine," said the younger, "is called 
 ' Poyntry for the Young,' and it begins : 
 
 Under a spreading chesunt tree 
 The village black-snitch stands. 
 
 " And mine," said the elder child seriously, 
 " is called ' Recollections of my Early Days/ 
 But the worst of it is that when once you 
 begin there seems such a lot to write about." 
 
 There was a little sister in the house who 
 was rather delicate. She often used to say, 
 " Ohj I do wish I were an angel." Her 
 brothers and sisters always imagined that her 
 wish only originated from her saintly nature, 
 for she certainly was a very good child. She 
 greatly astonished them one day, on being 
 somewhat closely questioned, by saying, 
 "Then I should be able to fly up into the 
 nursery, and it does make me so tired to 
 walk." 
 
 And this reminds me of the story of another 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 little girl, who lived and died hundreds 
 and hundreds of years ago. When she 
 was worn out and almost too weary to 
 move, she did not wish she were an angel, 
 but she said her simple prayers ; and lo, 
 in a moment it seemed to her that the 
 prayers became visible creatures with 
 shining wings, and they caught her up 
 into the air, and carried her, in the 
 twinkling of an eye, to the place where she 
 would be. That, I think, must be the real 
 meaning of the legend told of St. Catherine 
 of Siena ; for when she *' was a little child, 
 and went to be a hermit in the woods, and 
 lost her way, and sat down to cry, the 
 Angels, you know, did really and truly 
 waft her up on their wings and carried her 
 to the valley of Fontebranda, which was 
 very near home. And when she was 
 quite a little thing, and used to say her 
 prayers going up to bed, the Angels would 
 come to her and just * whip^ her right up 
 the stairs in an instant ! " That is still 
 the way with prayers — even in these days; 
 only, as a rule, they don't become visible. 
 
 Looking quite thoughtful, a little boy of 
 156 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 barely three years old said, ** Mother, over 
 whose neck do you say your prayers ? " 
 
 A nurse was putting the finishing touch to 
 her charge's toilet, preparatory to sending the 
 little girl into the dining-room for dessert. 
 Seeing a speck of dirt on the child's face, 
 she took the corner of her apron and damped 
 it in her mouth. The guests were suddenly 
 convulsed by hearing through the half-open 
 door a shrill childish voice, ** Tompany or no 
 tompany, me won't have my face washed with 
 spit." 
 
 "Oh, mother," said Winnie, **you never let 
 me come into your bed now. You know I 
 would be as quiet and still as a deep lake." 
 
 **What say?" was a favourite phrase of 
 Giggi's till I began to use it in speaking to 
 him. To my question " What say ? " one 
 evening he replied with great dignity, ** I 
 don't say that now, pappa ; I say ' What you 
 say?'" 
 
 ** Is it * some time ' yet, mamma ? " inquired 
 a patient little boy, who had begged for a knife 
 157 
 
CHILDREN'S SAYINGS 
 
 some weeks before, and was told he should 
 have one ** some time." 
 
 Which of us has not desired to find a day 
 for ** some time " ? 
 
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