Children -- Conduct of life -- Juvenile literature; Children's poetry; Children's stories; Conduct of life -- Juvenile literature
SOME time ago an amusing little anecdote was related about the German
Crown Prince whilst having a lesson in grammar from his tutor. One is
now being told about the second son of the imperial couple, Prince
Eitel Fritz. The Emperor is exceedingly strict about his son’s behavior
at table. Not long since little Prince Eitel Fritz, using his fingers
instead of his knife and fork, was corrected by his father several
times to no purpose. At last the Emperor’s patience was exhausted, and
he said:
“Children who eat with their fingers are like little dogs that hold
their food with their paws. If you use your fingers again you must
go under the table, the proper place for little dogs.” The little
Prince did his utmost not to forget this time, and used his knife and
fork like a man; but all at once he forgot again and began using his
fingers. “March under the table,” said his father. Prince Eitel Fritz
crept under as bidden. After a little while the Emperor, thinking the
Prince very quiet, lifted up the tablecloth and peeped underneath.
There sat little Prince Eitel Fritz undressed. His father asked him
what he meant by undressing himself. The child answered, “Little dogs
don’t wear clothes; they only have skin.”—_Selected._
A STRANGE GENERAL.
YEARS and years ago there was a busy housekeeper thrown into a fever of
anxiety because she heard a certain famous general was coming, and that
she would be expected to entertain him. She flew about in the greatest
haste, pressing all the people around her into service to help make
ready for the distinguished guest.
Among others was a man who, by his dress and general appearance, she
took to be a neighbor’s servant. “Take hold and help us here a minute,”
she said, and set him at some work in the kitchen. That being done the
man volunteered to split some wood to a certain size, as it was greatly
needed. While he was thus employed the lady’s husband, who had been
absent, reached home, and was informed of the honor in store for him.
He, too, set about helping with the preparations, and presently went to
the kitchen, where the strange servant was just laying down an armful
of the wood he had split.
Imagine the man’s stare of astonishment, mingled with dismay, when he
recognized in the stranger the famous general in whose honor all this
bustle of preparation was going forward.
In stammering confusion he approached the supposed servant, who, by
the way, was slightly deformed, and asked for the meaning of such an
extraordinary state of things.
“Why,” said the helper, with a broad smile on his face, “I am paying
the fine for my deformity.”
I leave the Pansies to learn who this great man was, and who was the
woman who in her haste to honor him mistook him for a house servant,
and also what happened in consequence of this.
PANSY.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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