pers and her reports, and she let
the incident pass with a smile, thinking it was a very pretty little
story. A week later the six-year old brother came in saying: "Mother,
I think there must have been another wagon load of calves passed by,
and one must have been lost off, for old Nell is cleaning up a little
calf out in the barn for all she is worth," while the older brother
piped up: "Sure, it was another load of calves; that is just exactly
the way the other calf got here;" and the two little fellows went off
to school.

About a month later that county superintendent suddenly became a much
wiser mother than she was before, although her heart was made to ache.
Both boys came home from school one day and the older one met her with
something like this: "I am mad! I've been lied to; all the fellows at
school say I have, and they are making sport of me, too," and with a
glare in his reddened eye he continued, "You know that new calf did
not come off that wagon; you know that calf came from old Bess
herself; all the fellows say so at school, and they are making all
kinds of fun of me, and I don't want to go back. I'd like to run away
from home." The mother quietly drew the boy to her side and reminded
him that she had simply listened; that she had not opened her mouth;
that he came into the room and told about the incident himself, but
this did not satisfy him. He turned to her wounded and crushed,
saying: "Well, you let a fellow believe it, and that's just as bad;"
and this educated mother--this trusted custodian of a county full of
school children--beseeched me to warn mothers everywhere to teach
their children the truth, and to never let a child go to school with a
sex misunderstanding. She told me that it took her six months to get
that boy's confidence back again.

DON'T GET SHOCKED

I believe that many mothers make the sad mistake of showing the child
that they are shocked by trivial sayings and trifling experiences of
their little people. If we could only get it into our heads for once
and for all that our children are born into this world veritable
little thieves and falsifiers, as well as adventurers and explorers,
we would then cease being so shocked and outraged by their frank
statements of what they have heard or have done. Let the mother listen
to all these things with calmness, while she seeks to direct the
child's mind in pure and elevated channels--to help him upward by
imparting "precept upon precep