Australian Tales - Setis

you should have seen the animated faces of my wife and myself while
squatted in opposite corners of the room, and with outstretched arms, we
alternately stimulated our wee tiny legs to ‘tum to its mammy,’ or ‘dow
to its daddy;’ while the fun of seeing it tumble down two or three times
on each short journey, was richer than ‘blind man's buff.’
“But I must get on a little faster with my story,” said Mr. Wobble, “for
I'm afraid you'll get sleepy, Mr. Boomerang. Years rolled on, and my
happy home resounded with juvenile fun and frolic, for I have been
blessed with more little strangers in the meantime, all of whom sprung
up healthy and strong except one, who was nipped down like a young
rose-bud. But I will not tell you about that darling one just now, sir,” said
the old man, as he dashed a tear from his eye-lid. “She is not lost; and
anon I shall see her again; not as a child, perhaps, but as a lovely maiden,
fairer than the flowers of paradise, arrayed in dazzling immortal robes,
‘brighter than brightness.’ ”
Old Mr. Wobble was here seized with a troublesome spasm in his
windpipe, but he soon recovered, and thus began again —
“Habit in a child is at first like a spider's web, neglected it becomes like
a thread or twine, next a cord or rope, finally a cable; then who can break
it? Those thoughts are not my own, Mr. Boomerang, but I can attest their
truth; and I ever tried to keep them in mind in the early training of my
young ones. Without curtailing their childish amusements, I have been
careful in seeing that they were of an innocent character, and have
frequently joined in their romping games, in order to observe if there
were anything objectionable in them or in their playmates, and though I
was sometimes as merry and frolicsome as a schoolboy in their midst, I
was guarding them against vulgar or pernicious actions, or slangy
expressions, with the vigilance of a schoolmaster.
“ ‘I'll slap your head,’ said Ruth, one day to little Joe, who had
accidentally thrown his boot into a saucepan full of beef-tea. Ruth would
get rather excited sometimes, poor thing, about trifles; but her anger
usually subsided quicker than the effervescence on a bottle of ginger pop.
She was as good a mother as ever rocked a cradle, only she now and then
got impatient, and would say cross things which she didn't really mean,
and which she would cry over afterwards, and then be foolishly indulgent
to the little object of her wrath. ‘Drat that boy,’ said Ruth, ‘he's spoiled
every drop of that nice beef broth with his dirty boot, I'll slap your head
for you, I will, you young rattletrap.’
“ ‘Slap it gently then, my dear,’ I whispered, ‘as you have promised to
do it, but don't promise to slap it again; for the head, though it looks
pretty hard externally, contains some exquisitely delicate material, as
physiologists explain to us; and they in general agree, too, that the brain
is the seat of the reasoning faculties. Now, my dear, suppose you were to
slap the bump of conscientiousness, which is in a very handy position,