Page:American Journal of Psychology Volume 21.djvu/278

 action. This stream of thought is no arbitrary interpretation. Anna meanwhile grew up a little and her interest for her father took on a special coloring which is hard to describe. Language possesses no words to describe the very special kind of affectionate curiosity which radiated from the child’s eyes.

Anna once took marked delight in assisting the gardener while he was sowing grass, without apparently divining the profound significance of the child’s play. About a fortnight later she began to observe with great pleasure the sprouting young grass. On one of these occasions she asked her mother the following question: “Tell me, how did the eyes grow into the head?” The mother told her that she did not know. Anna, however, continued to ask whether the Lord or her papa could tell this? The mother then referred her to the father, who might tell her how the eyes grew into the head. A few days later there was a family reunion at a tea, and after everything was over the guests departed. The father remained at the table reading the paper and Anna also remained. Suddenly approaching her father she said, “Tell me, how did the eyes grow into the head?” Father: “They did not grow into the head; they were there from the beginning and grew with the head.”

A. “Were not the eyes planted?”

F. “No, they grew in the head like the nose.”

A. “Did the mouth and the ears grow in the same way? and the hair, too?”

F. “Yes, they all grew in the same way.”

A. “And the hair, too? But the mousies came into the world naked. Where was the hair before? Were there no seeds added?”

F. “No, you see, the hair really came out of little grains which are like seeds, but these were already in the skin long before and nobody sowed them.” The father was now getting concerned; he knew whither the little one’s thoughts were directed, but he did not wish to overthrow, for the sake of a former false application, the opportunely established seed-theory which she had most fortunately gathered from nature; but the child spoke with an unwonted seriousness which demanded consideration.

Anna (evidently disappointed, and with a distressed tone): “But how did Freddy get into mama? Who stuck him in? and who stuck you into your mama? Where did he come out from?

From this sudden storm of questions the father chose the last for his first answer. “Just think, you know well enough that Freddy is a boy; boys become men and girls women. Only women and not men can have children; now just think, where could Freddy come out from?”