Children's Prattle

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"Yes, but my father," said the little daughter of a writer, "can put your father and her father and everybody else's father into a newspaper! My mother says everybody is afraid of him because he owns the paper!" And then she strutted as though she were a real little princess who knows how to strut!

Meanwhile a poor boy stood right outside the half-open door, peeping through the crack. This youngster was so humble that he wasn't even allowed into the room; he had been helping the cook by turning the spit, and now he had permission to peep through the door at the beautifully dressed children who were enjoying themselves inside, and that meant a lot to him.

"Wish I were one of them," he thought, and then he heard what they said, and that was enough to make him very sad. His parents had not saved a penny; they couldn't afford to buy a newspaper, much less write for one. Worst of all, his father's name, and hence his own, ended with "sen." He could never amount to anything in this world! That was sad, indeed. But still it seemed to him he had been "born." Yes, just like everybody else-it couldn't possibly be otherwise.

So much for that evening.

Many years had passed, and in that time children grow up. Now there stood in the city a handsome house, full of beautiful treasures, and everybody wanted to see it, even people who lived outside the city came to see it. And which of the children we have told you about owned this house? Yes, that's very easy for you to guess. No, it's not so very easy after all! That house belonged to the poor little boy! He had amounted to something, in spite of the "sen" at the end of his name-Thorvaldsen!

And the three other children-the children of blue blood, money, and intellectual pride? Well, one had nothing to reproach the other with. They were all equal as children, and they turned into charming and pleasant people, for they were really good at heart; what they had thought and said that evening had just been children's prattle.