Part 9

"Among the lower orders in Scotland humour is found, occasionally, very rich in mere children," observes the Dean, "and I recollect a remarkable illustration of this early native humour occurring in a family in Forfarshire, where I used in former days to be very intimate. A wretched woman, who used to traverse the country as a beggar or tramp, left a poor half-starved little girl by the road-side near the house of my friends. Always ready to assist the unfortunate, they took charge of the child, and as she grew a little older they began to give her some education, and taught her to read. She soon made some progress in reading the Bible, and the native odd humour of which we speak began soon to show itself. On reading the passage which began 'Then David rose,' etc., the child stopped and looked up knowingly to say, 'I ken wha that was,' and being asked what she could mean, she confidently said, 'That's David Rowse the pleuchman.' And again, reading the passage where the words occur, 'He took Paul's girdle,' the child said, with much confidence, 'I ken what he took that for;' and on being asked to explain, replied at once, 'To bake his bannocks on.'"

Among less than a dozen examples in all of child humour, the good Dean has yet another worth telling, which he says, used to be narrated by an old Mr. Campbell of Jura, who told the story of his own son. The boy, it seems, was much spoilt by indulgence. In fact, the parents were scarce able to refuse him anything he demanded. He was in the drawing-room on one occasion when dinner was announced, and on being ordered up to the nursery he insisted on going down to dinner with the company. His mother was for refusal, but the child persevered and kept saying, "If I dinna gang, I'll tell yon." His father then, for peace sake, let him go. So he went, and sat at the table by his mother. When he found every one getting soup and himself omitted, he demanded soup, and repeated, "If I dinna get it, I'll tell yon." Well, soup was given, and various other things yielded to his importunities, to which he always added the usual threat of "telling yon." At last, when it came to wine, his mother stood firm, and positively refused, as "a bad thing for little boys," and so on. He then became more vociferous than ever about "telling yon;" and, as still he was refused, he declared, "Now I'll tell yon," and at last roared out--"_My new breeks are made oot o' the auld curtains!_"

That, however, is not the most delectable of child stories. We prefer the ideas of the little folks within the region of philosophy. When, for example, they want to know "Whaur div' a' the figures gang when they're rubbit oot?" and ask such questions as "Where does the dark go when the light comes?" "Was it not very wrong of God not to make Cain good as well as Abel?" or, "If it be true that some of the stars are bigger than this earth, how do they not keep the rain off?"

"I say, father," asked a little fellow as he raised his eyes off his home lesson, "Who invented the multiplication table?" "Oh, I don't know," he was answered; "it was invented long ago; why?"

"Well, I was thinking if the gentleman that invented it didn't know it already, he must have had a tough job; and if he did know it, what was the good of him inventing it at all?" It was a cloudy and moonless night when a little fellow was taken out by his mother, who went to call for a friend. "Mamma," he exclaimed, looking up, "I expect God's been very busy this evening, for I see He has forgotten to hang the stars out."

She was a very small Miss who went to church alone one day, where an organ had recently been introduced. As she stood gazing about just within the door, an elder approached, and asked where she would prefer to sit. "Well," she said pertly, "if there's a monkey, I would like to be near the organ; but if there's no' a monkey, I'll just sit ony place."

A pretty good story is related of one of Governor Tilton's staff. It is said that when the individual referred to first presented himself _en militaire_ to his wife and little daughter, the latter, after gazing at him for a few minutes, turned to her mother, and exclaimed: "Why, Ma, that's not a real soldier--it's Pa!" Equally observant was another youngster, who was sent by his parent to take a letter to the post-office and pay the postage on it. The boy returned highly elated, and said: "Father, I seed a lot of men putting letters in a little place; and when no one was looking, I slipped yours in for nothing." We hardly know whether the father would laugh or storm over this unconscious attempt to defraud the revenue. But no matter.

Two little London girls who had been sent by the kindness of the vicar's wife to have "a happy day in the country," narrating their experiences on their return, said, "Oh, yes, mum, we did 'ave a happy day. We saw two pigs killed and a gentleman buried."

It is the rare that fascinates. Many years ago, I was living in a house where, on an evening, a little Miss was toiling over her school-lesson, and declaiming loudly, "The--sow--has--pigs." Being a city child, I wondered whether she knew of what she was reading, and asked, "Did you ever see a sow and pigs, Mary?" "No," she replied smartly, "but when I was going to the school the day, I saw a policeman getting his photograph taken."

But speaking here of London children, reminds me of two London stories which should not be omitted. So here:--

Two small boys walking down Tottenham Court Road, passed a tobacconist's shop. The bigger remarked--"I say, Bill, I've got a ha-penny, and if you've got one too, we'll have a penny smoke between us."

Bill produced his copper, and Tommy, diving into the shop, promptly re-appeared with a penny cigar in his mouth.

The boys walked side by side for a few minutes, when the smaller mildly said, "I say, Tom, when am I to have a puff? The weed's half mine."

"Oh, you shut up," was the business-like reply. "I'm the chairman of this company, and you are only a shareholder. You can spit."

That is the first. The second, though less precocious, is yet more enjoyable. Besides, we know it is true, while the other--well, it is not above suspicion.

One day, when seeking a model, Miss Dorothy Tennant (now Mrs. H. M. Stanley) discovered a likely subject in the shape of a crossing-sweeper; and, while conducting him to Richmond Terrace, she met her family's old friend, Mr. Gladstone. Greatly moved by her companion, he exclaimed:

"Who's your friend?" Then and there the crossing-sweeper, much to his dismay, was presented to the "People's William."

On entering the Tennant mansion, the urchin was tremendously impressed by the liveried servant who had opened the door, and, after looking back at him several times, whispered mysteriously to his kind hostess:

"I say, miss, why does your big brother wear brass buttons?"

Always thoughtful, Miss Tennant first led her charge to the servants hall, where she sat beside him as he played havoc with the well-filled dishes placed before him. At the conclusion of his repast, Miss Tennant asked the boy how he liked it.

"Proper," replied the crossing-sweeper; "yer mother do cook prime!"

London having yielded its quota, the "Second City" may be again drawn upon.

A little boy of tender years was sitting on the doorstep of a house in Bridgeton, there, the other morning, crying bitterly, when a girl of about the same age accosted him, and the following conversation was overheard:--"What are ye greetin' for, laddie?" she inquired, in sympathetic tones. "Did onybody hit ye?" "N-n-na," sobbed the boy. "Then, what is't ye're greetin' for?" the little damsel went on. "'Cause my wee brither's gane to heaven," exclaimed the little fellow, bitterly, between his sobs. "Oh!" ejaculated the girl; and then, after a pause, "but ye shouldna greet like that--maybe he hasna."

Another. Recently a little fellow came home from school crying bitterly, and altogether manifesting great sorrow. "What's the matter, Geordie," sympathetically inquired his mother, "has onybody been hittin' ye?" "N-n-n-o," answered the boy between his sobs. "Then, what are you crying about?" she went on. "Boo! hoo! wee Sammy Sloan's faither an' mither hae flitted to Coatbrig!" "Tuts, laddie, dinna greet about that," she exclaimed, re-assuringly, "there's plenty mair laddies bidin' in the street besides Sammy Sloan that ye can play wi'." "I ken that," said Geordie, with another sob, "but he was the only yin I could lick."

Children, really, as we have been revealing so frequently here, have the fresh and original notions of things, and are always frank enough to give them voice.

A little boy was reading the story of a missionary having been eaten by cannibals. "Papa," he asked, "will the missionary go to heaven?" "Yes, my son," replied the father. "And will the cannibals go there, too?" queried the youthful student. "No," was the reply. After thinking the matter over for some time, the little fellow exclaimed--"Well, I don't see how the missionary can go to heaven if the cannibals don't, when he's inside the cannibals."

One Sunday evening, while sitting on his mother's knee listening to the story of Jonah being swallowed by the whale, a little fellow looked up seriously into her face and asked, "Ma, did Jonah wear his slippers in the whale's belly? Because, if he didna, the tackets in his boots wad tear a' its puddin's."

Dr. John Ker of Edinburgh, in his recently published volume of reminiscences--_Memories Grave and Gay_--tells of how "in a Banffshire manse one Sunday evening, all the family were sitting quietly reading in the drawing-room, when the youngest boy, with a laudable thirst for knowledge, went up to his mother and asked a question, for the answer to which she referred him to me. Coming up to me, he said--

"'Mr. Ker, is it true that the devil goes about like a roaring lion?"

"'It must,' I replied, 'be true, for it is in the Bible.'

"This was followed by another question which I did not attempt to answer--

"'Then, wha keeps his fire in when he's gaun aboot?'"

"Do you know, mamma, I don't believe Solomon was so rich after all?" observed a sharp boy to his mother, who prided herself on her orthodoxy. "My child!" she exclaimed in pious horror, "what does the Bible say?" "That's just it," he answered. "It says that 'Solomon slept with his fathers.' Now, surely, if he had been rich he'd have had a bed to himself."

A father once said to a little boy, not so obedient as might be desired, "Everything I say to you goes in at one ear and out at the other." "Is that what little boys has two ears for, daddy?" asked the child, quite innocently.

Engaging his tender "hopeful" in the wonders of astronomy--"Men have learned the distances of the stars," observed the father; "and, with their spectroscopes, found out what they are made of." "Yes," responded the boy admiringly; "and isn't it strange, pa, how they found out their names too!"

SCHOOLROOM FACTS AND FANCIES.

These are so numerous as to demand a separate chapter.

Talking of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, a lady teacher asked her class what a serpent was like, when a boy aptly replied, "It's like a lang rope furlin'."

On another occasion, in the same class, the question was, "What does the devil tempt little boys and girls to do?" when the comical answer came, "To chap at fouk's doors, mem."

It has been often told, but is worth repeating, how a pupil teacher was doing his level best to make the children remember Samson's mighty deeds with the jawbone of an ass, and, recapitulating, he asked, "What did Samson slay ten thousand Philistines with? Eh?" No reply came. Then, pointing to his jawbone, he asked, "What is this?" And at once the answer belched proudly from half-a-dozen throats in unison, "The jawbone of an ass."

In a country school the lesson was on "The Prodigal Son," and the question, "What were the husks that the swine did eat?" met with the prompt answer, "Tawtie peelin's." In a city seminary a teacher asked her class, "Who knows everything we say and do?" when she received the unexpected reply, "The fouk that bides next door to us."

Expecting to get the answer "Carnivorous" (as it bore on the lesson), a teacher asked his class for an example of a bird of prey, and among other answers he got was "A yellow yite." The boy who responded so, on being asked to explain, continued, "Because it eats worms."

"What do you call the bird or beast that feeds on both animal and vegetable foods?" was the next question. The teacher anticipated "Omnivorous" this time, but it did not come. There was silence for a little. Then a boy, who evidently had been ruminating, responded nonchalantly, "A gutsy brute, sir."

In examining the boys in the composition of sentences, a master began: "If I ask you," said he, "what have I in my hand? you must not say simply 'Chalk,' but make a full sentence of it, and say, 'You have chalk in your hand.' Now I will proceed. What have I on my feet?" The answer came immediately, "Boots." "Wrong; you haven't been observing my directions," he rebukingly replied. "Stockings," another heedlessly ventured to answer. "Wrong again--worse than ever," wrathfully exclaimed the _magister_. "Well?" he continued interrogatively to a lad near him. "Please, sir," then he paused--perhaps he thought it _might_ sound funny, but he felt it _must_ be right, and so he recklessly gasped out--"Corns!"

But the answers are not always so stupid.

"Why is it," asked a teacher, "the sun never sets on the British possessions?" "Because," slowly responded an ingenuous youngster, "the British possessions are in the north, south, and east, and the sun always sets in the west."

During a recent School Board examination in the west of Scotland, the examiner asked a little girl to explain what was meant by the expression, _He was amply rewarded._ "Paid for't," was her instant reply. "No, no; you are wrong. Suppose you have to go into a baker's shop and buy a half-quarter loaf, and lay down fourpence, would you say you had amply rewarded the baker?" Unhesitatingly she replied "Yes." "Why?" "Because the loaf's only twopence-three-farthings," was the unlooked-for answer.

Quite like that is the story of a small boy into whose head a teacher was one day labouring almost in vain to get, as he thought, even the faintest correct notion of the first rule in arithmetic. "Look here now, Johnnie," he said at length, "if I were to give you two rabbits and your father were to give you three rabbits, how many rabbits would you then have?" "Six." "No, no;" and the teacher set out bits of chalk to show how he could only have five. "Ah, but," drawled out Johnnie, "I have a rabbit at hame already."

It was a notion of multiplication that another teacher was endeavouring to get properly lodged within the skull of another boy, and by way of putting the effort to a practical test, he said: "Now, Peter, suppose I was a tailor who supplied your father with a suit of clothes for three pounds, which he promised to pay me in weekly instalments of one shilling, how much would your father be due me at the end of a year?" "Three pounds," replied Peter slowly. "Nonsense, Peter; think again." Peter thought again, but again answered as before. "You don't know that simple sum!" exclaimed the teacher in amazement. "Ay, I ken it weel enough," responded Peter, "but ye dinna ken my faither."

"Did any of you ever see an elephant's skin?" asked the master of an infant school. "I have," shouted a six-year-old at the foot of the class. "Where?" "On the elephant."

A little boy of my acquaintance, while yet a pupil in the infant department, was one day given a slate more to engage his attention than aught else. But he had some notion of drawing, and when the teacher came round she was astonished to find he had set down a fair picture of a bird on a bough. "Ha! who drew this?" she asked. "Mysel'," was the canny Scotch reply. "And who's mysel'?" she queried. "Oh, I'm fine," was the second response, not less Scotch than the first. The English reader, of course, won't fairly understand the word "fine" as spoken there; but every Scotsman will, as also how "who's" may be mistaken for "how's."

There is another "fine" story. It was asked of a class, "How did the Israelites get across the Red Sea?" "Fine," exclaimed a youth with brightening eyes; "'twas the 'Gyptians was droon'd."

"What do you mean by a temperate region?" asked an inspector of a class, putting due emphasis on the word temperate. "The region, sir," responded a boy "where they drinks only temperants drinks."

Not long ago a class of boys were being examined on the different kinds of wood; and one little chap was asked to name the specimen (a piece of mahogany) which was held in the examiner's hand. He hesitated, and the inspector, by way of suggestion, remarked, "Why, don't you know the materials that your mother's drawers are made of?" This seemed to simplify the matter, and, amidst a roar of laughter, came the quick reply--"Flannelette!"

"Name anything friable," said a teacher. "Ham," was the ready answer.

"What is a papal bull?"

"A golden calf."

"What is ice?"

"Water fast asleep."

"What is a skeleton?"

"A man without any meat on it."

A teacher was examining a class on the battle of Bannockburn, and asked, "Who killed de Bohun?" No one knew. He raised his arm in an attitude of striking, and yelled, with flashing eyes, "Who killed de Bohun, I say?" A little fellow near him, who expected the blow, raised his arm in a defensive attitude, and whined, "Oh, please, sir, it wasna me."

"What is meant by faith?" was one day asked of a class. "Faith," responded a thoughtful youth, "is the faculty which enables us to believe things that we know to be not true."

In the lesson of a class of country boys not long ago, the words "above the average" occurred, and the lady teacher asked if any one could tell what the word "average" meant. There was no response for a time, and she passed the question from one to another until a more than average specimen eagerly responded, "It's a thing that hens lay on." The teacher was dumb-founded, and asked for an explanation. "Well," drawled the budding Solomon, "my mother says that our hens lay each four eggs a week--on an average."

It is a teacher's business to observe that his scholars are clean as well as clever, and the Rev. David Macrae, in his entertaining little book of _Quaint Sayings of Children_, tells how a teacher, after glancing round the class one day, said to a boy, "I'll let you off if you can find a hand in all the school as dirty as that one," indicating the boy's own grimy exposed paw. The youth promptly brought forth and showed his other fist, which was certainly dirtier still, and the master, in view of his pledge, had no resource but to let the offender go for that time any way.

An old story, which has had a lively currency, tells of how a boy when he returned from school was always asked where he stood in his class, and whose invariable answer was, "I'm second dux." For the regular holding of this excellent position he received many fine things in the shape of sweets and biscuits, and pennies, etc., until at length it occurred to one of the family to ask him how many were in his class. It was then the gilt fell off the ginger-bread. "Oh," said he, "there's just me and anither lassie."

Dean Ramsay tells of a very practical answer given by a little girl who had been asked the meaning of "darkness," as it occurred in Scripture reading--"Just steek your een." In the same place, he says, on the question, "What is the pestilence that walketh in darkness?" being put to a class, a little boy answered, after consideration, "Oh, it's just _bugs_."

Our friend, Dr. John Ker, has often told of an occasion when he was examining a class in mathematics, and put the question to a boy--"If a salmon weighed 16 lbs., and was to be sold at 2d. per lb., what would it be worth?"--and how the lad, who was the son of a fishmonger, hastily replied--"It wadna be worth a curse!" Salmon at that price, I should say, would nowhere in these days be esteemed above suspicion anyway. And boys _will_ be frank even although their replies at times appear more smart than respectful. Once a Cockney manufacturer was taking part in a school examination and asked a boy pompously--"W'at's the capital of 'Olland?" "H," was the unconsciously smart reply given. And that recalls a good dialect story, under the early Board system, which tells how an English clergyman and a Lowland Scotsman entered one of the best schools in Aberdeen. The master received them kindly, and enquired--

"Would you prefer that I should spier (question) the boys, or that you should spier them?"

The English clergyman desired the master to proceed. He did so with great success, and the boys answered satisfactorily numerous interrogatories as to the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. The clergyman then said he would be glad to "spier the boys," and at once began--

"How did Pharaoh die?"

There was a dead silence.

In his dilemma the Lowland gentleman interposed.

"I think, sir, the boys are not accustomed to your English accent; let me try what I can make of them." And he inquired in broad Scotch--

"Hoo did Phawroah dee?"

Again there was a dead silence, upon which the master said--

"Noo, boys, fat cam' to Phawroah at his hinner end?"

The boys with one voice answered--

"He was drooned."

And a smart little fellow added--

"Ony lassie could hae tell't ye that."

Not unlike the above is a story told by Dr. Ker. The venerable inspector was one day putting a class "through its facings," and asked a boy where the River Dee was. The answer came correctly, "In Aberdeenshire."

"Assuming quite a serious look (says Dr. Ker), I asked him if he was not mistaken, adding that I thought the Dee was in Kirkcudbright, and flowed into the Solway Firth. He was a bashful boy, and made no reply. To give the class a needed fillip, I appealed to them to settle whether I or the boy was right. To give a verdict against the inspector was, of course, not to be thought of, and there was silence for a time; but at last a boy put his hand to his mouth, and said to his neighbour in a stage whisper not meant for, but which reached my ear--'He disna ken there's twa Dees.'"

Once by way of stimulant, the doctor asked a somewhat sleepy history class which of the four Georges wore the largest hat? and a boy who had not till then opened his mouth, replied--"Him that had the biggest heid."