of the sky," says his mother. "Watch
them!"

"Oh!" says Johnny, uttering the child's little exclamation of satisfaction.
He looks at the flakes as they fall, catching one after another with his
eye, and following it in its meandering descent. He will, perhaps, occupy
himself several minutes in silence and profound attention, in bringing
fully to his mind the idea that a snow-storm consists of a mass of
descending flakes of snow falling through the air. To us, who are familiar
with this fact, it seems nothing to observe this, but to him the analyzing
of the phenomenon, which before he had looked upon as one grand spectacle
filling the whole sky, and only making an impression on his mind by its
general effect, and resolving it into its elemental parts of individual
flakes fluttering down through the air, is a great step. It is a step which
exercises his nascent powers of observation and reflection very deeply, and
gives him full occupation for quite a little interval of time. At length,
when he has familiarized himself with this idea, he asks again, perhaps,

"Where do the flakes come from, mother?"

"Out of the sky."

"Oh!" says Johnny again, for the moment entirely satisfied.

One might at first think that these words would be almost unmeaning, or, at
least, that they would give the little questioner no real information. But
they do give him information that is both important and novel. They advance
him one step in his inquiry. Out of the sky means, to him, from a great
height. The words give him to understand that the flakes are not formed
where they first come into his view, but that they descend from a higher
region. After reflecting on this idea a moment, he asks, we will suppose,

"How high in the sky, mother?"

Now, perhaps, a mother might think that there was no possible answer to be
given to such a question as this except that "she does not know;" inasmuch
as few persons have any accurate ideas of the elevation in the atmosphere
at which snow-clouds usually form. But this accurate information is not
what the child requires. If the mother possessed it, it would be useless
for her to attempt to communicate it to him. In the sense in which he
asks the question she _does_ understand it, and can give him a perfectly
satisfactory answer.

"How high is it in the sky, mother, to where the snow comes from?" asks the
child.

"Oh, _very_ high--higher than the top of the house," replies the mother.

"As high as t