There is still another story, which may as well be introduced here, as it applies to the unnecessary worry of parents about their young.  In this case, it was a hen that sat on a nest of eggs.  When the chickens were hatched, they all pleased the mother hen but one, and he rushed to the nearest pond, and, in spite of her fret, fuss, fume, and worry, insisted upon plunging in.  In vain the hen screamed out that he would drown, her unnatural child was resolved to venture, and to the amazement of all, he floated perfectly, for he was a duck instead of a chicken, and his egg was placed under the old hen by mistake.

Mother, father, don’t worry about your child.  It may be he is a swan; he may be a duck, instead of the creature you anticipated.  Control your fretfulness and your worry for it cannot possibly change things.  Wait and watch developments and a few days may reveal enough to you to show you how totally unnecessary all your worries would have been.  Teach yourself to know that worry is evil thought directed either upon our own bodies or minds, or those of others.  Note, I say evil thought.  It is not good thought.  Good thought so directed would be helpful, useful, beneficial.  This is injurious, harmful, baneful.  Evil thought, worry, directs to the person, or to that part of the body considered, an injurious and baneful influence that produces pain, inharmony, unhappiness.  It is as if one were to divert a stream of corroding acid upon a sensitive wound, and do it because we wished to heal the wound.  Worry never once healed a wound, or cured an ill.  It always aggravates, irritates, and, furthermore, helps superinduce the evil the worrier is afraid of.  The fact that you worry about these things to which I have referred, that you yield your thoughts to them, and, in your worry, give undue contemplation to them, induces the conditions you wish to avoid or avert.  Hence, if you wish your child to be well and strong, brave and courageous, it is the height of cruelty for you to worry over his health, his play, or his exercise.  Better by far leave him alone than bring upon him the evils you dread.  Who has not observed, again and again, the evil that has come from worrying mothers who were constantly cautioning or forbidding their children to do that which every natural and normal child longs to do?  Quit your worrying.  Leave your child alone.  Better by far let him break a rib, or bruise his nose, than all the time to live in the bondage of your fears.

Elsewhere I have referred to the fact that we often bring upon our loved ones the perils we fear.  There is a close connection between our mental states and the objects with which we are surrounded.  Or, mayhap, it would be more correct to say that it is our mental condition that shapes the actions of those around us in relation to the things by which they are surrounded.  Let me illustrate with an incident which happened in my own observation.  A small boy and girl had a nervous, ever worrying