Never Again

On a Sunday, not so very long ago, a rural family entertained a visitor in their farm home.  Sitting in the kitchen after church and a Sunday supper, the visitor was deeply impressed by the intelligence and unusually good behavior of the only child in the home, a little four-year-old boy.

Then, as the story goes, the visitor discovered one reason for the child's  charm. The mother was at the kitchen sink, washing the intricate parts of a cream separator, when the little boy came to her with a magazine.

"Mother," he asked, "what is this man in the picture doing?"

To the visitor’s surprise, she dried her hands, sat down on a chair, and taking the boy in her lap spent the next few minutes answering his questions.  After the child went outside to play, the visitor commented on the fact that she interrupted her chores to answer the boy's question, saying, "Most mothers wouldn't have."

"I expect to be washing cream separators for the rest of my life," she said, "but never again will my son ask me that question."