"'Is there anything like a lever about a wheelbarrow?' said his father. 'O yes, sir,' said JAMES. 'The axle; and the wheel is the prop, the load is the weight, and the power is your hand.'"
Nor is a child ever too young to get ideas of thrift. One of our writers for infants observes, after explaining that the Dutch reclaimed the whole of Holland from the sea by means of dykes, "they worked hard, saved their money, and so grew rich." Any child can take such hints.
Neither is it wholly amiss to demonstrate that a child can't put a clock in his pocket. For it is plain that he would else be trying to do so sometime.
Now, where in the "Arabian Nights" do you find anything like this?--We answer, triumphantly, Nowhere!
"'JAMES,' said his father, 'do not shut up hot water too tight, and take care when it is over the fire.'
"'A lady was boiling coffee one day, and kept the cover on the coffee-pot too long. When she took it off, the water turned to steam, and flew up in her face, and took the skin off.
"'Do you know how they make the wheels of a steamboat move? They shut up water tight in a great kettle and heat it. Then they open a hole which has a heavy iron bar in it, the steam lifts it, in trying to get out. That bar moves a lever, and the lever moves the wheels.
This fact the reader must distinctly realize. And doesn't he realize that the days of JACK, the Giant-killer, and Little Red Riding Hood, are about over? We want truth. The only question is, (as FESTUS observed), What is Truth?
_Derrick_.--There is a superstition afloat that, if you see a ladder hoisted against a house, and, instead of passing outside the ladder you pass under it, some accident or affliction will befall you. What about this?
_Answer._.--It all depends upon circumstances. If, while passing under the ladder, a hod of bricks should fall through it and strike you on the head, then an "accident or affliction" shall have befallen you: otherwise not.
_Nincompoop_.--I hear a great deal about the "log" of the _Cambria._ Can you tell me how it is likely to be disposed of?
_Answer_.--It is to be manufactured into snuff-boxes for the officers and crew of the _Dauntless_, as a delicate admission that they are up to snuff and not to be sneezed at.