be served, inventive of tender and pious little words that she had never
used before. "You are exquisite to me, mother," she said, at receiving
some common service.

Even in the altering and harassing conditions of fever, a generous child
assumes the almost incredible attitude of deliberate patience. Not that
illness is to be trusted to work so. There is another child who in his
brief indispositions becomes invincible, armed against medicine finally.
The last appeal to force, as his distracted elders find, is all but an
impossibility; but in any case it would be a failure. You can bring the
spoon to the child, but three nurses cannot make him drink. This, then,
is the occasion of the ultimate resistance. He raises the standard of
revolution, and casts every tradition and every precept to the wind on
which it flies. He has his elders at a disadvantage; for if they pursue
him with a grotesque spoon their maxims and commands are, at the moment,
still more grotesque. He is committed to the wild novelty of absolute
refusal. He not only refuses, moreover, he disbelieves; he throws
everything over. Told that the medicine is not so bad, this nihilist
laughs.

Medicine apart, a minor ailment is an interest and a joy. "Am I unwell
to-day, mother?" asks a child with all his faith and confidence at the
highest point.




THE YOUNG CHILD