660 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



up rarely, and sometimes, as it looks to us, capriciously. Illness 

 and temporary removal are a common occasion for the appear- 

 ances of a deeper tenderness in the young heart. A little boy of 

 three spontaneously brought his story book to his mother when 

 she lay in bed ill ; and the same child used to follow her about 

 after her recovery with all the devotion of a little knight. 



Very quaint and pretty, too, are the first attempts of the child 

 at consolation. A little German girl, aged two and a half, had 

 just lost her brother, and seemed very indifferent for some days. 

 She then began to reflect and to ask about her playmate. On 

 seeing her mother's distress she proceeded in truly childish fash- 

 ion to comfort her : " Never, mind mamma, you will get a better 

 boy. He was a ragamuffin" {"Er war ein Lump"). The coex- 

 istence of an almost barbarous indifference for the dead brother 

 with practical sympathy for the living mother is characteristic 

 here. 



A deeper and more thoughtful sympathy comes with years 

 and reflective power. Thought about the overhanging terror, 

 death, is sometimes the awakener of this. "Are you old, 

 mother ? " asked a boy of five. " Why ? " she answered. " Be- 

 cause," he continued, " the older you are the nearer you are to 

 dying." This child had once before said he hoped his mother 

 would not die before him, and this suggests that the thought of 

 his own forlorn condition was in his mind here ; yet we may hope 

 that there was something of disinterested concern too. 



This early consideration frequently takes the practical form 

 of helpfulness. A child loves nothing better than to assist you 

 in little household occupations ; and though love of activity and 

 the pleasure of imitating, no doubt, count for much in these cases 

 we can, I think, safely set down something to the wish to be of 

 use. This inference seems justified by the fact that such prac- 

 tical helpfulness is not always imitative. A little boy of two 

 years and one month happened to overhear his nurse say to her- 

 self, " I wish that Anne would remember to fill the nursery 

 boiler." " He listened and presently trotted off, found the said 

 Anne doing a distant grate, pulled her by the apron, saying, 

 ' Nanna, Nanna ! ' (come to nurse). She followed, surprised and 

 puzzled, the child pulling all the way, till, having got her into the 

 nursery, he pointed to the boiler, adding, ' Go dare, go dare/ so 

 that the girl comprehended and did as he bade her." 



With this practical "utilitarian" sympathy there goes a wish 

 to please in other ways. Sometimes this shows itself in a dainty 

 courtesy, as when a little girl, aged three and a quarter, petitioned 

 her mother in this wise : " Please, mamma, will you pin this with 

 the greatest pleasure ? " Regard for another's feelings was surely 

 never more charmingly expressed than in the prayer that in 



