d very quickly that if I did not hear mother, and heed, a
coffee-pot would spill upon me. I cannot remember when I disobeyed my
mother that a coffee-pot of some kind did not spill upon me, and I got
my blisters. Mother did not inflict them. Mother was not much of an
inflicter. Father attended to that in the laboratory behind the
parsonage.

"Stop, Look, Listen"

And thru the bumps we learn that The College of Needless Knocks runs on
the same plan. The Voice of Wisdom says to each of us, "Child of
humanity, do right, walk in the right path. You will be wiser and
happier." The tongues in the trees, the books in the running brooks and
the sermons in the stones all repeat it.

But we are not compelled to walk in the right path. We are free
im-moral agents.

We get off the right path. We go down forbidden paths. They seem easier
and more attractive. It is so easy to go downward. We slide downward,
but we have to make effort to go upward.

Anything that goes downward will run itself. Anything that goes upward
has to be pushed.

And going down the wrong path, we get bumped harder and harder until we
listen.

We are lucky if we learn the lesson with one bump. We are unlucky when
we get bumped twice in the same place, for it means we are making no
progress.

When we are bumped, we should "stop, look, listen." "Safety first!"

One time I paid a seeress two dollars to look into my honest palm. She
said, "It hain't your fault. You wasn't born right. You was born under
an unlucky star." You don't know how that comforted me. It wasn't my
fault--all my bumps and coffee-pots! I was just unlucky and it had to
be.

How I had to be bumped to learn better! Now when I get bumped I try to
learn the lesson of the bump and find the right path, so that when I
see that bump coming again I can say, "Excuse me; it hath a familiar
look," and dodge it.

The seeress is the soothing syrup for mental infants.

Blind Man's Fine Sight

The other day I watched a blind man go down the aisle of the car to get
off the train. Did you ever study the walk of a blind man? He
"pussyfooted" it along so carefully. He bumped his hand against a seat.
Then he did what every blind man does, he lifted his hand higher and
didn't bump any more seats.

I looked down my nose. "Ralph Parlette," I said to myself, "when are
you going to learn to see as well as that blind man? He learns his
lesson with one bump, and you have to go bumping int