EDITOR'S DRAWER. soon cover the earth with fresh grass and the beautiful flowers of which he was so fond, and that He was the source of all good. Shortly after she heard him telling his sister that God was down in the gyound, making nice gyass and fowers for us. And the next morning, when the sleep was first washed out of his eyes and he had plunged out of doors, he found that a crocus had pushed its way out of the oozy bed beneath the newly-melted snow. Quivering with excitement he rushed back into the house, exclaiming, "God has made a fower!' "Has He, my child?' said his mother. "Yes, yes!' cried he, nodding vociferously with his head; He pushed it up yeal clean out of the mud.' "His mother explained to him that though God wrought in the earth, and brought forth the beautiful flowers from thence, yet his dwelling-place was in the heavens. "Soon after he came running into the house, his eyes sparkling with delight at having seen the first bird of spring. "I saw a yittle God- bird out of doors!' he cried. "My child!' said his mother, shocked at the mixture he seemed determined to make of every thing; and she made one more attempt at explanation, trying to make him understand that the air, where the birds were, was a part of our earth; but that the heaven, which was God's throne, was another thing. In this he seemed to acquiesce, and YOUNG AMERICA. CESAR "Young gentleman in the parlor, inquiring for you, Miss Sybil; are you at home?" I've got proofs to correct, and lots of correspondence to get through. Tell him I've HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE. called the birds 'the yittle air-birds' the rest of the summer. "When the streets began to be filled with soldiers he was full of excitement, and gave his mother no peace from morning till night with teasing for a suit of soldier clothes, and drums, and swords, and the like. Thinking this rather too much military spirit for a three-year-old, his mother took him up one day after the battle of Bull Run, and showed him the dark side of the soldier's fate, telling him of the wounded on the battle-field and in the hospitalsof the trampling of horses over the slain-of the hard deaths and hasty burials. He looked very serious, and said nothing, but his military ardor was in nowise damped; he evidently thinking that being shot was a small matter compared with the glory of drums and soldier clothes. "Some time after this he was sitting on the floor and fallen apparently into a brown study. Finally at his mother's feet, having dropped his playthings, he looked up, and said, in a whisper, go up to God's house, zen-zen' (very softly) 'God "Mamma, if we are all cut to pieces when we will have somesing to'eat, won't He?' cannibal notion; and taking him in hand again, she "Why!' said his mother, shocked at this supertold him that we should have a new body, that God would make us again, and showed him what a terrible idea he had taken up. "Will He put us togezzer again?' said he, earn estly. 666 'Yes.' "He sat looking into his mother's face for a few moments in childish wonder, and then, jumping off her lap, and drawing up his little dress to show | teasing his father one morning to buy him some where his knee and thigh joints were, he said, "I know! Zere's a bent in my bones, zere and zere! Zat's where he will put us togezzer again.' "At another time he asked where we should sleep when we went up to 'God's house'-a term which he persists in using. His mother told him that perhaps we should not sleep at all. "But if we do?' "I don't think we shall.' "But if we do? Zen-zen zose clouds would be nice places to sleep on, wouldn't zey?' pointing to some white fleecy clouds that lay against the horizon. "One day, stopping with his father at a grocery, he took an orange from a basket, just as he would possess himself of any thing he wished. He was told that this was a theft-that if he had not money to pay the grocer for such things as he wanted, it was stealing to take them. Shortly after he was skates the rest of the family having been supplied, and he persisting in the idea that he could skate as well as the rest. His father told him that he had no money to buy him skates with. That night a barrel of apples was sent home, and being rather better than usual, some of the family went into the kitchen to see them before they were stored away, and Charlie with the rest. When he returned to the parlor he walked about for a while in one of his thoughtful moods, and then, going close to one of the members of the family, he put his mouth to his ear, and said, "I want to tell you a secret.' 666 'Well, what is it?' "Papa STOLE zose apples. Don't you tell any body.' "What makes you think so?' said the other, laughing. ITINERANT MERCHANT.-"I don't care about sellin' the fruit, Ma'am; but as for gettin' away, if you only knew how I like to look on a pretty smilin' face, you'd let me stop and gaze a bit." "The recipient of this weighty confidence was too much amused to keep the secret, and repeating the accusation with a laugh to the family ear, his father recalled what he had told him in the morning about the skates, concluding that it was best not to make vague statements to a child whose logic cut so close. "A servant in the family had a cruel step-mother. He had been in the kitchen listening to an account of her ill-treatment one day, and coming thence to the nursery, he said, "God didn't make Lizzie's naughty muzzer, did He?' "Yes,' said his mother. good; she made herself bad.' 'He made her to be "With some further explanation he seemed satisfied, and went off; but after a time he came back, and asked who made the bears. "God made them,' was the reply. "Did He? What did He make zem for? Did He make zem to be good?' "He had taken the whooping-cough from a little girl in the neighborhood, and during one of his violent spasms of coughing he asked, when he found breath, "Where did I get it, mamma?' "From Katy Jones,' said she. Don't you know? She has it, and you took it from her.' 6 "Another paroxysm; and then, when he could breathe, he panted out, When she gets well I'll whip her!" OFFENDED BEAUTY.-"Such freedom with a Lady, Sir, is not to be excused on the plea of thoughtlessness." REPENTANT SWAIN." Well, Miss Clara, the fact is, I'd just been dining with a party at Delmonico's, and was & little elevated!" |