Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 May 1892 — CHILDREN’S COLUMN. [ARTICLE]

CHILDREN’S COLUMN.

A DEPARTMENT FOR LITTLE BOYS AND GIRLS. Something that Will Interest the Juvenile Members of Every Household Quaint Actions and bright Sayings of Cute Children. Father Gander's Melodies. Little 80-Peep Has lost her sheep, And 1 know where she'll find them! Down In the shops— As mutton chops— With a porter-house steak behind them. —Harper's Young People. A Bogue of a Hoy. His name was Phil Deane. He had great, laughing, brown eyes, and little, prying, brown lingers. He had, too, a sad, sad habit of not obeying. You shall hear what came of this. The story Is as true as a story can be. Phil and his papa and mamma were staying at Mr. Drew’s farmhouse by the seashore when it happened, and Phil was C years old. One day, after digging sand awhile upon the beach, the little boy trudged off behind the house to pull clover for Bessie, the klppV rpfi <*nw “That’s right, Master Phil,” called Mr. Drew from the barn, where he was painting a boat; “give my cow a good supper.” “She eats pretty fast, I think,"said Phil, stroking Bessie, of whom he was very fond. Then he frisked into the barn to watch Mr. Drew at his work. “Mustn’t touch," cried Mr. Drew, dipping his brysh into the can of blue paint beside him. “Why mustn't I? ” began Phil, but at that moment he spied something strange in the corner and ran to see what it could be. It was a gun, left there by a neighbor who was coming back for it in a short time. “Mustn't touch,” said Mr. Drew, without looking up. He had forgotten the gun. He thought the child had gone for the pitch fork. “Why can't I take it?” asked Phil, slyly laying hold of the gun. "You’re too little. You might hurt yourself," said Mr. Drew, still without raising his eyes, for now he heard Phil’s father coming, and he thought Mr. Deane could take care of his own little son. “Poh! I’m oceans bigger’n I used to be. Mr. Drew doesn’t know,” said Phil to himself, lifting the heavy gun with a great effort and pointing it at his father. “Look out, papa, I'm going to shoot,” he cried out merrily, with his chubby brown finger upon the trigger. “Don’t move, my son, don’t move!” shouted his father, springing quickly aside. But even while he spoke the trigger snapped, and with a flash and a bang the gun went off. Phil saw something fall, and topplied over himself, shrieking: “I didn’t mean to! O, I didn’t mean to shoot papa! O! I was only funning.” Strange to say, Mr. Deane was not harmed In the least. “You might have killed me, my son. It’s a mercy that you did not,” he cried, hastening to snatch up the smoking gun. “You haven’t hurt me, but—think of it, my little boy—you have killed Mr. Drew’s good old cow.” ' Phil nearly cried his eyes out over the cow, and his papa gave Mr. Drew •40 0 buy another one, but that did not make dear old Bessie alive again. No, that day’s mischief could nCver be undone, but It taught little Phil a lesson that he has never forgotten. It taught the little meddler never to touch what he had been told not to handle.—Penn Shirley, in Our Little Ones. A Touching Incident. In the “Memoirs of Jenny LindGoldschmidt” we read this touching Incident of her childhood: It was the grandmother who was the first to detect the musical gifts of the child, and this detection left a profound impression on the child herself, as *lf she, too, then first made a discovery of what was In her, through the surprise which she found herself producing in others. The story formed her earliest distinct memory. Coming up from the country to the‘town, she was struck by the music of the military bugles that daily passed through the street, and one day,'When she fancied herself alone in the house, she crept to the piano, on which her half-sister used to practice her music, and, with one finger, strummed out for herself the fanfare which she had caught from the soldiers. But her grandmother was at hand, and, hearing the music, called out the name of the half-sister, whom she supposed It to be, and little Jenny, in terror at being found out, hid under the square piano. She was so small that she fitted in perfectly, and the grandmother, getting no answer to her calls, came in to look, and presently discovered her and dragged her out, and was astonished, and said: “Child, was that you?” And Jepny, in tears at her crime, confessed, but the grandmother looked at her deeply and in silence, and when the mother came back she told her, and said: “Mark my words, that child will bring you help.”