or interest.

_The Wrong Way_.

Two boys, for example, William and James, who have been playing in the yard
with their little sister Lucy, come in to their mother with a plan for a
fish-pond. They wish for permission to dig a hole in a corner of the yard
and fill it with water, and then to get some fish out of the brook to put
into it.

The mother, on hearing the proposal, says at once, without waiting for any
explanations,

"Oh no, I would not do that. It is a very foolish plan. You will only get
yourselves all muddy. Besides, you can't catch any fishes to put into it,
and if you do, they won't live. And then the grass is so thick that you
could not get it up to make your hole."

But William says that they can dig the grass up with their little spades.
They had tried it, and found that they could do so.

And James says that they have already tried catching the fishes, and found
that they could do it by means of a long-handled dipper; and Lucy says that
they will all be very careful not to get themselves wet and muddy.

"But you'll get your feet wet standing on the edge of the brook," says the
mother. "You can't help it."

"No, mother," replies James, "there is a large flat stone that we can stand
upon, and so keep our feet perfectly dry. See!"

So saying, he shows his own feet, which are quite dry.

Thus the discussion goes on; the objections made--being, as usual in such
cases, half of them imaginary ones, brought forward only for effect--are
one after another disposed of, or at least set aside, until at length the
mother, as if beaten off her ground after a contest, gives a reluctant and
hesitating consent, and the children go away to commence their work only
half pleased, and separated in heart and affection, for the time being,
from their mother by not finding in her, as they think, any sympathy with
them, or disposition to aid them in their pleasures.

They have, however, by their mother's management of the case, received an
excellent lesson in arguing and teasing. They have found by it, what they
have undoubtedly often found on similar occasions before, that their
mother's first decision is not at all to be taken as a final one; that they
have only to persevere in replying to her objections and answering her
arguments, and especially in persisting in their importunity, and they will
be pretty sure to gain their end at last.

This mode of management, also, has the effect of fixing the position of
th