Wessington Springs Herald

Elsie Learning to Mind.

Elsie is only two years old, and does not talk very plainly. When any one asks her for her name she says: "I's Sassy." And a pretty good name for her it is, for she does not mind mamma or grandma very well, and when they try to train her to be a good girl she sometimes looks very saucy indeed.

Grandma has a great many beautiful flowers, and Elsie knows very well she ought not to touch them; but for all that she will pick some whenever she goes into the garden alone for a moment. One day she came into the house with a lovely lily hanging its yellow head sadly over the back of her fat hand. She did not say anything, but she looked half-ashamed and half-defiant when grandma took it from her and scolded her, saying she was a naughty, naughty little girl to pick grandma's flowers, and if she did so any more she would have to be shut up in the closet.

After awhile grandma thought she would get more flowers to put with the lily, for a mantel bouquet; so she went out into the garden and picked a great handful. When she came into the house with them Elsie looked from grandma to the flowers and back to grandma again, and, shaking her head with a stern frown that looked very comical on her chubby face, she said:

"Ah, ah! naughty grandma pick 'e flowers. Shut 'e up in closet!"

That lesson had to be taught over again.

Elsie loves to look at pictures, and her mamma often shows her those in bound volumes of illustrated magazines. In some of these are birds flying high in the air, where they look like specks of tiny crosses, and mamma tells her they are birdies.

One day a wasp came in at the window, and flew around the upper part of the room, bumping his head against the ceiling every minute. This made it very angry, and it buzzed very loudly, indeed. Elsie shouted: "A birdie! a birdie!" and reached for it with both hands. Just then it flew down toward the little girl, and grandma, afraid that it might sting her, hit it with a book. It fell to the floor, and lay as if it were dead; so grandma went for the dust-pan and brush to sweep it up and carry it away; but first she told Elsie not to touch it, for it might sting her. When grandma was gone, Elsie went close to the wasp and looked at it. It lay very still, and she felt sure that such a quiet birdie, such a lovely yellow-and-black birdie, would never hurt a little girl; so she stooped over and took it between her thumb and finger; but oh! how quickly she dropped it, and how she ran screaming to grandma, holding up that poor little thumb, that turned red and then white, and swelled up as big as two thumbs, all in a minute; for though the head of the wasp seemed dead, the sting was very much alive, indeed. It took a strong bath of soda and water for the suffering thumb, two big ginger-snaps, and a great deal of kissing and petting to soothe "grandma's baby," and even then she nearly cried again when grandpa came home, and she tried to tell him how she "des pull 'e birdie leg, an' 'e birdie bit Sassy." That lesson did not have to be learned again.

—N. Y. Evangelist.