XXIV.

A HAT PIN PROBLEM.

I overheard the following conversation the other day in a popular
refectory:

"Do your children mind you?"

"I guess not; they never pay any more attention to me than if I was a
dummy. It takes their father to bring them to terms every time!"

"I am so glad to hear it. I like to know that somebody else besides me
has a hard time with their children. I declare the only way I can get
baby to mind already is to jab him with a hat-pin!"

I waited to hear no more. With sad precipitation I gathered up my
check and fled. Had I waited another minute I should have said to that
mother: "Madam, I will give you a problem to solve. If, at the age of
three, a child needs the impetus of one hat-pin to make him obey, how
many meat-axes will it require to keep him in order at the age of ten?
And if you are such a poor miserable failure as a mother and a woman
now, just at the commencement of an immortal destiny, what have the
eternities in store for you?"

Why, oh, why are children sent to people who have no more idea about
bringing them up than a trout has about training hop-vines? It is a