Our Boys and Girls.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 976, 14 November 1890, Page 6

Our Boys and Girls.

TOOT’S MISTAKE. I’ve been waiting to go to Sunday school a long time. ‘Mamma said, ‘l’m afraid you would not be a good girl, Toot.’ And Minnie said, ‘ Don’t you let her go, mamma. She will be sure to do something ’sgraceful.’ Uncle Jack said, ‘Toot, you are a kiro, and you shall go to Sunday school, if I have to take you myself.' I said, * Uncle Jack, what is a kiro ?’ and he said, * You find out, Toot, and I will give you a big silver dollar. So I went to Sunday school. All the way Minnie kept saying, ‘ No Toot, you mustn’t do this, and I mustn’t do that,' and I said I wouldn’t. I liked the sup’tendent; he looked like a long blaok lead pencil. He said, ‘ How do you do, my dear?’ to me. And I said, ‘l’m O.K. How are you?’ Just like our hired man ?' And Minnie jerked my hand and made me sit down. I just ’joyed the singing ; I didn’t know the song, but I sang ‘ Little Sally Waters’as loud as I could, and once they all got through before I did, and Minnie jerked me awful. The teacher was prettier than Minnie. She had roses in her hat, and two little holes in her cheeks when she laughed. She told a buful story about angels going up and down a ladder. She said they were white with big wings. And now, children, ‘of course none of you ever saw an angel.’ ‘ I have,’ I said as loud as I could. ‘ Why, Toot 1’ she said. ‘ Yes, I have,’ I said. ‘ We’ve got ’em at our house, more’n fifty of ’em. They’re white, with big wings ; and they swim on the pond, and say “ quack, quack.” ’ Then all the children laughed, and the teacher said:— ‘No, Toot, those are ducks.’ . They passed around a plate with money in it, and I took two bright pennies, and said, ‘Thank you.’ Minnie wanted them herself, and tried to take them away from me, but I held on to them tight and she couldn’t get them. The sup’tendent said if anybody wanted to ask a question they could, and I got up and said : ‘ What is a kiro? Uncle Jack said he would give me a silver dollar if I found out. Minnie, you stop pulling my Bash. I’ll tell mamma of you when I get home. Then they all laughed again, and wouldn’t stop, and the Bup’tendent said: ‘ I guess it is a little girl that means right, but makes mistakes sometimes.’ And I said 1 guessed it was. Then they all stood up and Baid, ‘ Our Father,’ and I said ‘ Amen ’ as loud as I could. Going home I said to Minnie: ‘ Wasn’t it lovely ? I’m going every Sunday.’ But Minnie wouldn’t talk, and made me walk so fast I almost fell down. When we came to Mr May’s, Jennie stood by the gate, and Minnie stopped to talk to her. I looked through the gate and saw some flowers, and I went in. Oh, it was beautiful, so many flowers ! I picked a nice bouquet of ra’nums, the kind mamma has in the house. Then I was smelling a rose and an ugly big fly jumped out of it and bit me on the nose, and it burned like fire. I screamed and cried, and Minnie came running into the garden and pulled me through the gate, and jerked me all the way home. Minnie’s an awful jerker, and I screamed and everybody looked at me. And one gentleman said to Minnie : ‘ Aren’t you ashamed to hurt your sister V When I got home my nose was all swelled up and red. Mamma put something on it and it stopped aching. Uncle Jack said: ‘Toot, you look like Squire Boberts with that big red nose.’ I said : ‘ Did a fly bite his nose, too ?’ And Uncle Jack said, ‘No, Toot, whisky bit his nose.’ _ Minnie made a great fuss, and said, ‘ I didn’t ’have myself at Sunday school,’ but she said most about what the gentleman said —I couldn’t see why.’ About twenty weeks after I went to Sunday school Squire Boberts and his wife came to see us. The squire, and papa and Uncle Jack were sitting on the piazza smoking and talking politics. I like Squire Boberts—he’s so fat and shines so. I went out on the piazza and said, ‘ How do you do, squire ; how’s everything ?’ That’s what papa said when he saw him. The squire said, ‘ Everything's all right, my dear; come and sit on my lap,’ and I went. I kept looking at his nose and thinking how bad it must feel, and at last I said. ‘Does your nose ache much, squire?’ He said, ‘Why what do you mean, Toot? My noes don’t ache at all, why should it ?’ I said, ‘ Ain’t it funny, squire, our noses was just alike, and the same thing didn’t bite them, did it? A fly bit mine, and whisky bit yours, Uncle Jack sats so/ I guess papa swallowed something the wrong way just then ’cause he choked so, and Uncle Jack never laughed at all as he gen’ly does when I talk. Then papa said real cross ‘Go into the house this minute, Toot!” and I went. And the squire and his wife went right off, and they’ve never come here since.

Teacher : ‘ Bobby, what does lazy mean ?’ Bobby : ‘Lazy means always to want your little sister to get it for you.’ Teacher : 1 Tommy, do you know what a Nemesis is?’ Tommy : ‘ Yessum.’ Teacher: ‘ Well, what is it ?’ Tommy: ‘ A Jonah.’ ‘ May Igo in swimming, ma ?’ Ma : ‘ No, my eon.’. Tommy: ‘May I go down and see the boys in swimming, ma ?’ Ma : ‘ Yes ; but mind that you don’t disobey me.’ Two hours later Tommy returns. Ma: ‘ Tommy, you have been in swimming; you have disobeyed me.’ Tommy: ‘ Well, you said I might go and see the boys in swimming, and they kept diving and swimming under water all the time, so I had to go in to see them. 1 '