Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 April 1875 — Childhood’s Legends. [ARTICLE]

Childhood’s Legends.

I wish I had stopped growing old when I reached the age of ten, and had not learned that all the pleasantest stories of childhood’s days were deliberate lies, concocted on purpose to deceive. There was a time when 1 believed that “ Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard to get her poor dog a bone,” and that she failed to find bone or crust when she opened the doors. I grieved over the old lady's poverty, and had I known her place of residence I should have slipped a loaf of bread under my arm and hastened to her relief. And I used to see before my eyes, when I went to bed, the hill which Jack and Gill toiled up to get a pail of water. I could imagine the size of the boys, the color of their hair and eyes, and Gill had a patch on his knee. I wondered if it hurt them when they fell down, and if the pail sustained any damage, and what their mother had to say about it. What use was it for anyone to concoct such a lie to harass a child’s mind?

And what wretch originated the poetic story of the mouse which ran up the clock? Did some one clock door open? Did the mouse gnaw his way through? Did he run up among the wheels and stop the time-piece? How did they get him out? Ah! I used to ask myself these questions over and over, and wonder what became of the mouse and where it all happened. And how mean it was to tell that lie about the cat and the fiddle, the dish running away with the spoon, and the cow making such a fearful jump. A thousand times, when I was a boy, have I looked up at the bright moon to see if I couldn’t see a cow; making the leap? I used to wonder if it hurt her much when she struck, it she was a red or a spotted cew, and if- the owner ever found her. How could a cat get into a fiddle, and how could a dish run , away with a spoon? I queried and questioned, but I was always left in the dark. Many and many a night as I was tucked into bed I grieved for fear that “ little boy blue" was still “ under the haystack fast asleep.” His mother would miss him when night Came, and his father and the neighbors would make a search, but they might overlook the spot, and “ boy blue" would be out all night and shiver with fear and cold.

But the worst of all is the legend of the bears who disguised themselves, knocked at a widow’s door, were admitted, and then proceeded to devour their unsuspecting victims. I solemnly declare that I have been kept awake more hours by that story than by all the sickness ever coming upon my family. In my imagination I would start the bears from their den in the woods and follow them through it all; and I would shiver, and sweat, and breathe hard, and finally yell out in my nervous terror. If I ever catch the man who wrote that legend I will do him some grievous injury, in revenge for the niental torture inflicted upon me. ■ When my boy comes sliding up to me of an evening and asks me to tell a story, I say in reply: “ There are no stories. If you want some fun take my jack-knife and whittle away at the table leg.” I’d rather he’d make shavings of all the furniture than to know that he suffers in mind as I used to over these horrible legends.—M. Quad, in Our Fireside Friend.