“I’m trying to make this hen say her prayers.”

“Well,” said the parent sadly, “I hope she’ll say:  ‘Now I lay me.’”

BROWN (on fishing trip)—­“Boys, the boat is sinking!  Is there any one here who knows how to pray?”

JONES (eagerly)—­“I do.”

BROWN—­“All right.  You pray and the rest of us will put on life belts. 
They’s one shy.”

A small boy, whose father is now on the other side with the Y.M.C.A., was taught to say at the end of his prayer, “Please, God, make Graham a good boy.”  One night he did not say it, and when his mother asked him if he had not forgotten something, he said, “No; I thought I was asking too much of God.  I’d better do more myself.”

GRANDSON (who hasn’t decided yet just what branch of the service will have the benefit of his talents)—­“There seems to be quite a diversity of opinion regarding what prayer to say in response to the Senate’s request for daily prayer for victory.”

GRANDMA (industriously knitting)—­“Guess any of ’em will do, so long as it isn’t ‘Now I lay me down to sleep.’”

  “The proper way for a man to pray,”
    Said Deacon Lemuel Keyes,
  “And the only proper attitude
    Is down upon his knees.”

  “No, I should say the way to pray,”
    Said Rev. Doctor Wise,
  “Is standing straight with outstretched arms
    And rapt and upturned eyes.”

  “Oh, no, no, no,” said Elder Slow,
    “Such posture is too proud;
  A man should pray with eyes fast closed
    And head contritely bowed.”

  “It seems to me his hands should be
    Austerely clasped in front,
  With both thumbs pointing to the ground,”
    Said Rev. Doctor Blunt.

  “Last year I fell in Hodgkin’s well
    Head first,” said Cyrus Brown,
  “With both my heels a-stickin’ up,
    My head a-pinting down;

  “An’ I made a prayer right then an’ there—­
    Best prayer I ever said,
  The prayingest prayer I ever prayed,
    A-standing on my head.”

  —­Sam Walter Foss.

A young mother was about to hear her small girl’s prayers when a neighbor called and said she must see the mother right away.  They had been talking at the front door several minutes when a reproachful little voice came from the top of the stairway: 

“Mamma, aren’t you ’shamed to keep God waiting so long?”

It was the week before little Willie’s birthday, and he was on his knees at his bedside petitioning Divine Providence for presents in a very loud voice.

“Please send me,” he shouted, “a bicycle, a tool chest, a—­”

“What are you praying so loud for?” his younger brother interrupted.  “God ain’t deaf.”

“I know he ain’t,” said little Willie, winking toward the next room, “but grandma is.”

MARJORIE—­“Will I get everything I pray for, mama?”

MOTHER (cautiously)—­“Everything that’s good for you, dear.”