And then you should nestle ’round me, telling all your little griefs; for well I know that childhood has its griefs, which are all the keener because great, wise, grown-up people have often neither time nor patience, amid the bustling whirl of life, to stop and listen to them. I know what it is for a timid little child, who has never been away from its mother’s apron string, to be walked, some morning, into a great big school-room, full of strange faces;--to see a little urchin laugh, and feel a choking lump come in your little throat, for fear he was laughing at you;--to stand up, with trembling legs, in the middle of the floor, and be told to “find big A,” when your eyes were so full of tears that you couldn’t see anything;--to keep looking at the ferule on the desk, and wondering if it would ever come down on your hand;--to have some mischievous little scholar break your nice long slate-pencil in two, to plague you, or steal your bit of gingerbread, out of your satchel, and eat it up, or trip you down on purpose, and feel how little the hard-hearted young sinners cared when you sobbed out, “I’ll tell my mother.” I know what it is, when you have lain every night since you were born, with your hand clasped in your mother’s, and your cheek cuddled up to hers, to see a new baby come and take your place, without even asking your leave;--to see papa, and grandpa, and grandma, and uncle, and aunt, and cousins, and all the neighbors, so glad to see it, when _your_ heart was almost broke about it. I know what it is to have a great fat nurse (whom even mamma herself had to mind) lead you, struggling, out of the room, and tell Sally to see that you didn’t come into your own mamma’s room again all that day. I know what it is to have that fat old nurse sit in mamma’s place at table, and cut up your potato and meat all wrong;--to have her put squash on your plate, when you _hate_ squash;--to have her forget (?) to give you a piece of pie, and eat two pieces _herself_;--to have Sally cross, and Betty cross, and everybody telling you to “get out of the way;”--to have your doll’s leg get loose, and nobody there to hitch it on for you;--and then, when it came night, to be put away in a chamber, all alone by yourself to sleep, and have Sally tell you that “if you wasn’t good an old black man would come and carry you off;”--and then to cuddle down under the sheet, till you were half stifled, and tremble every time the wind blew, as if you had an ague fit. Yes, and when, at last, mamma came down stairs, I know how _long_ it took for you to like that new baby;--how every time you wanted to sit in mamma’s lap, he’d be sure to have the stomach-ache, or to want his breakfast; how he was _always_ wanting something, so that mamma couldn’t tell you pretty stories, or build little blocks of houses for you, or make you reins to play horse with; or do any of those nice little things, that she used to be always doing for you.