Personification of Inanimate Objects.

It will at once occur to the mother that any inanimate object may be personified in this way and addressed as a living and intelligent being.  Your child is sick, I will suppose, and is somewhat feverish and fretful.  In adjusting his dress you prick him a little with a pin, and the pain and annoyance acting on his morbid sensibilities bring out expressions of irritation and ill-humor.  Now you may, if you please, tell him that he must not be so impatient, that you did not mean to hurt him, that he must not mind a little prick, and the like, and you will meet with the ordinary success that attends such admonitions.  Or, in the spirit of the foregoing suggestions, you may say,

“Did the pin prick you?  I’ll catch the little rogue, and hear what he has to say for himself.  Ah, here he is—­I’ve caught him!  I’ll hold him fast.  Lie still in my lap, and we will hear what he has to say.

“’Look up here, my little prickler, and tell me what your name is.—­My name is pin.—­Ah, your name is pin, is it?  How bright you are!  How came you to be so bright?—­Oh, they brightened me when they made me.—­Indeed!  And how did they make you?—­They made me in a machine.—­In a machine?  That’s very curious!  How did they make you in the machine?  Tell us all about it!—­They made me out of wire.  First the machine cut off a piece of the wire long enough to make me, and then I was carried around to different parts of the machine to have different things done to me.  I went first to one part to get straightened.  Don’t you see how straight I am?—­Yes, you are very straight indeed.—­Then I went to another part of the machine and had my head put on; and then I went to another part and had my point sharpened; and then I was polished, and covered all over with a beautiful silvering, to make me bright and white.’”

And so on indefinitely.  The mother may continue the talk as long as the child is interested, by letting the pin give an account of the various adventures that happened to it in the course of its life, and finally call it to account for pricking a poor little sick child.

Any mother can judge whether such a mode of treating the case, or the more usual one of gravely exhorting the child to patience and good-humor, when sick, is likely to be most effectual in soothing the nervous irritation of the little patient, and restoring its mind to a condition of calmness and repose.

The mother who reads these suggestions in a cursory manner, and contents herself with saying that they are very good, but makes no resolute and persevering effort to acquire for herself the ability to avail herself of them, will have no idea of the immense practical value of them as a means of aiding her in her work, and in promoting the happiness of her children.  But if she will make the attempt, she will most certainly find enough encouragement in her first effort to induce her to persevere.