orm of wind had been blown with
a ladder from a house-top in Glasgow, and was killed. "Who makes the
wind?" she asked sharply. She was told. "And does God make the bad winds
that kills the mans?" was demanded. There was no reply; but she read the
silence as meaning "yes," and turning to leave the room she muttered
more to herself than otherwise, "When I die and go to Heaven I'll not
sit beside God." When repeating the _Pater-noster_ one evening she stuck
at the first sentence, and wanted to know "If God is our Father in
Heaven who is our Mother in Heaven?" But the mother was saved this time
by the interposition of the little one's elder brother, who, with stern
emphasis, exclaimed, "Stupid! God's wife, of course." A little
boy-relative of that girl returned from school one day, while he was but
a pupil in the infant department, and stepping proudly up to where his
father was seated, "Pa," he exclaimed, "I am the cleverest boy in the
class." "Indeed," returned the parent, "I am proud to hear that; but who
said it?" "The teacher." "If the teacher said so, it surely must be
true. What did she say, though?" "She said, 'Stand up the cleverest boy
in the class,' and I stood up." The same little fellow was on the way to
school with a friend one morning, towards the end of December, when the
two were attracted by the appearance of a sweep on the chimney of a
neighbouring building. "I ken what that man's doin' up there," he
asserted; "he's sweepin' the lums for Santa Claus to get doon." And that
recalls the story I once heard of a little man in the Carse of Gowrie.
It happened on an evening towards the close of the year, as he was
preparing for bed, and was sitting by the fire with his first liberated
stocking in his hand, that he looked over to his mother, and "Mither,"
he asked, "will I get a pair o' new stockin's before Christmas?" "Maybe,
laddie; but what gars ye speir?" "Because"--and he spoke mournfully, as
he stuck his fingers through a large hole in the toe--"if Santa Claus
puts onything intil thir anes, it'll fa' oot." How cleverly they reason,
you see! "Bring me a drink o' water, Johnnie," was the order delivered
by a Perthshire farmer to his little son one day a good many years ago.
The boy went to do as he was asked, but the water-stoup had been nearly
empty, and, as he was approaching his parent with the liquid, he paused
and peered doubtfully into the hand-vessel, then, as if suddenly
inspired by a happy thought, "Wi