ding. On the list I
put "The Little Lame Prince," the charming story by Dinah Mulock. Having
completed the list, I read it aloud to the little girl. When I reached
Miss Mulock's book, she interrupted me.

"'The Little Lame Prince,' did you say? Is that in the library? I
thought it was in the Bible."

"The Bible!" I exclaimed.

"Yes," the child said, in some surprise; "don't you remember? He was
Jonathan's little boy--Jonathan, that was David's friend--David, that
killed the giant, you know."

I at once investigated. The little girl was quite correct. "Who told you
about him?" I inquired.

"Our minister," she replied. "He read it to me and some of the other
children."

This, too, a bit later, I investigated. I found that the minister had
not read the story as it is written in the Bible, but a version of it
written by himself especially for this purpose and entitled "The Little
Lame Prince."

At church, as elsewhere, the children of our nation are quick to
observe, and to make their own, opportunities for doing as the grown-ups
do. When occasion arises, they slip with cheerful and confiding ease
into the places of their elders.

One Sunday, last summer, I chanced to attend a church in a little
seaside village. When the moment arrived for taking up the collection,
no one went forward to attend to that duty. I was told afterward that
the man who always did it was most unprecedentedly absent. There were a
number of other men in the rather large congregation, but none of them
stirred as the clergyman stood waiting after having read several
offertory sentences. I understood afterward that they "felt bashful,"
not being used to taking up the collection. The clergyman hesitated for
a moment, and then read another offertory sentence. As he finished, a
little boy not more than nine years old stepped out of a back pew, where
he was sitting with his mother, and, going up to the clergyman, held out
his hand for the plate. The clergyman gravely gave it to him, and the
child, without the slightest sign of shyness, went about the church
collecting the offerings of the congregation. This being done, he, with
equal un-self-consciousness, gave the plate again to the clergyman and
returned to his seat beside his mother.

"Did you tell him to do it?" I inquired of the mother, later.

"Oh, no," she answered; "he asked me if he might. He said he knew how,
he saw it done every Sunday, and he was sure the minister would let
him."