showed symptoms of hydrophobia, and I shot him. Not long after this I found the boy at a pump trying to keep a tub full, which appeared to have no bottom. I inquired what he was doing, and it turned out that he was trying to drown a frog. I asked the reason: Because a toad had poisoned the poor little dog.

Here was a process of ratiocination worthy of any autocrat that ever breathed. Because A suffered soon after worrying B, therefore C shall be pumped to death. Precisely the case of Poland.

I know another little boy who once lost a favorite dog. About a week afterward the dog reappeared, and the boy was the happiest creature alive. But something happened a little out of the way, which caused further inquiry, when it turned out that the new dog was not the old one, though astonishingly like. The only difference I could perceive was a white spot under the neck. Well, what does our boy do? receive the stranger with thankfulness, and adopt him with joy, for his extraordinary resemblance to a lost favorite? No, indeed; but he gives him a terrible thumping, and turns him neck-and-heels out of doors on a cold, rainy night! As if the poor dog had been guilty of personating another! How perfectly of a piece with the behavior of grown people who have cheated themselves, and found it out. Woe to the innocent and the helpless who lie in their path! or sleep in their bosom, or inhabit among their household gods!

But children are not merely unjust, and cruel, and treacherous, even as men are. Like men, they are murderers, mischief-makers, devils, at times. I knew two boys, the older not more than four, who caught a hen, and, having pulled out her eyes with crooked pins, they let her go; after which, on seeing her stagger and tumble about, and perhaps afraid of discovery, they determined to cut off her head. One was to hold her, and the other to perform the operation; but for a long while they could not agree upon their respective shares in the performance. At last they hit upon a precious expedient. They laid her upon the steps, put a board over her body, upon which one of the two sat, while the other sawed off her head with a dull case-knife. Parents! Fathers! Mothers! What child of four years of age was ever capable of such an act, without a long course of preparation? for neglect is preparation. Both were murderers, and their parents were their teachers. If "the child is father of the man," what is to become of such children? If it be true that "just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined," how much have you to answer for? If "men are but children of a larger growth," watch your children forever, by day and by night! pray for them forever, by night and by day! and not as children, but as Men of a smaller growth,—as men with most of the evil passions, and with all the evil propensities, that go to make man terrible to his fellow-men, his countenance hateful, his approach a fiery pestilence, and his early death a blessing, even to his father and mother!

GOODY GRACIOUS!

AND THE

FORGET-ME-NOT.

Once there was a little bit of a thing,—not more than so high,—and her name was Ruth Page; but they called her Teenty-Tawnty, for she was the daintiest little creature you ever saw, with the smoothest hair and the brightest face; and then she was always playing about, and always happy: and so the people that lived in that part of the country, when they heard her laughing and singing all by herself at peep of day, like little birds after a shower, and saw her running about in the edge of the wood after tulips and butterflies, or tumbling head-over-heels in the long rich grass by the river side, with her little pet lamb or her two white pigeons always under her feet, or listening to the wild bees in the apple-blossoms, with her sweet mouth "all in a tremble," and her happy eyes brimful of sunshine,—they used to say that she was no child at all, or no child of earth, but a Fairy-gift, and that she must have been dropped into her mother's lap, like a handful of flowers, when she was half asleep; and so they wouldn't call her Ruth Page,—no indeed, that they wouldn't!—but they called her little Teenty-Tawnty, or the little Fairy; and they used to bring her Fairy Tales to read, till she couldn't bear to read anything else, and wanted to be a Fairy herself.

Well, and so one day, when she was out in the sweet-smelling woods, all alone by herself, singing, "Where are you going, my pretty maid, my pretty maid?" and watching the gold-jackets, and the blue dragon-flies, and the sweet pond-lilies, and the bright-eyed glossy eels, and the little crimson-spotted fish, as they "coiled and swam," and darted hither and thither, like "flashes of golden fire," and then huddled together, all of a sudden, just underneath the green turf where she sat, as if they saw something, and were half frightened to death, and were trying to hide in the shadow; well and so—as she sat there, with her little naked feet hanging over and almost touching the water, singing to herself, "My face is my fortune, sir, she said! sir, she said!" and looking down into a deep sunshiny spot, and holding the soft smooth hair away from her face with both hands, and trying to count the dear little fish before they got over their fright, all at once she began to think of the Water-Fairies, and how cool and pleasant it must be to live in these deep sunshiny hollows, with green turf all about you, the blossoming trees and the blue skies overhead, the bright gravel underneath your feet, like powdered stars, and thousands of beautiful fish for playfellows! all spotted with gold and crimson, or winged with rose-leaves, and striped with faint purple and burnished silver, like the shells and flowers of the deep sea, where the moonlight buds and blossoms forever and ever; and then she thought if she could only just reach over, and dip one of her little fat rosy feet into the smooth shining water,—just once—only once,—it would be so pleasant! and she should be so happy! and then, if she could but manage to scare the fishes a little—a very little—that would be such glorious fun, too,—wouldn't it, you?

Well and so—she kept stooping and stooping, and stretching and stretching, and singing to herself all the while, "Sir, she said! sir, she said! I'm going a-milking, sir, she said!" till just as she was ready to tumble in, head first, something jumped out of the bushes behind her, almost touching her as it passed, and went plump into the deepest part of the pool! saying, "Once! once!" with a booming sound, like the tolling of a great bell under water, and afar off.

"Goody gracious! what's that?" screamed little Ruth Page; and then, the very next moment, she began to laugh and jump and clap her hands, to see what a scampering there was among the poor silly fish, and all for nothing! said she; for out came a great good-natured bull-frog, with an eye like a bird, and a big bell-mouth, and a back all frosted over with precious stones, and dripping with sunshine; and there he sat looking at her awhile, as if he wanted to frighten her away; and then he opened his great lubberly mouth at her, and bellowed out, "Once! once!" and vanished.

"Luddy tuddy! who cares for you?" said little Ruth; and so, having got over her fright, she began to creep to the edge of the bank once more, and look down into the deep water, to see what had become of the little fish that were so plentiful there, and so happy but a few minutes before. But they were all gone, and the water was as still as death; and while she sat looking into it, and waiting for them to come back, and wondering why they should be so frightened at nothing but a bull-frog, which they must have seen a thousand times, the poor little simpletons! and thinking she should like to catch one of the smallest and carry it home to her little baby-brother, all at once a soft shadow fell upon the water, and the scented wind blew her smooth hair