Article June 7, 1952 Issue

LEARNING TO BE STILL

[Of Special Interest to Children]

JEANNE GASTMEYER THOMPSON

Hope was screaming loudly: "I can't get down. I can't. I can't." When Mother went to see what all the noise was about, she saw little Hope sitting on the garage roof, her hands gripping the sides tightly, her feet swinging in mid-air. She was crying so loudly that she could not hear her brother, who was on the ground below, trying to tell her how to get down.

Mother went over to the children and looking up to where Hope was sitting said: "Hope, listen. You will never be able to hear how to get down until you stop crying." Hope knew this to be true, so she stopped her crying. As soon as she was quiet, her brother was able to show her the ledge on which to put her foot, and immediately she was down on the ground with her mother and brother.

"Now," Mother said, sitting down under the trees and taking the little girl in her lap, "there is a lesson to be learned from this experience." And she reminded them of the little bird that had been caught on their screened porch a couple of weeks before and of how he had kept flying against the screens instead of finding the door they had opened for him. Because he thought he was trapped on the porch he was filled with fear and kept flying blindly against the screens, peeping loudly.

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