Wash your hands well

Abstract

Wash your hands good! I reminded Joey, who was dreamily dabbling his paint-stained hands in the water. You should say, 'wash your hands well,' corrected prim little Connie. That is what my mother says. So I should, Connie, I answered. Something about the remark stung a little, but I didn't know what. wasn't the slip of the tongue; that had happened to me many times. was not until after lunch, when the children were tucked in their cots and sleeping like the little angels they were not, that I decided it was not what Connie said to me that hurt; it was the superior little air in which she said it. And, I told myself, let that be a lesson to you! Watch not only what you say but the way in which you say it! The next day I slipped up again. Four-year-old Janie of the blueeyes, blonde pigtails, Boston accent, and extraordinary vocabulary greeted me on the playground one morning with the question: Do you know what an octopus is? Why, yes, I replied, glad that I had seen one the summer before at the beach. It is an animal you find in the ocean. has a round sort of body and eight arms and legs. I tried to explain as I kept my eyes on two little boys who were about to come to blows in the sand box. It has tentacles! answered Janie. Tentacles! Yes, indeed! Always use proper terms for things.