Explore "Pet's Half-Crown" by Mary Louisa Molesworth on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Mammas have troubles sometimes, though you mightn't think it. They have indeed. I remember when I was a little girl that it seemed to me big people _couldn't_ have real troubles; that only children had them. Big people could do as they liked, get up when they liked, not go to bed _till_ they liked; eat what they chose, dress as they pleased, do no lessons, and were never scolded. Things do not look quite like that to me now, when for many many more years than I was a child I have been a big person. However, as each of you will find out for himself or herself all about big people in good time, I won't try to explain it to you. Only, I do think the world might get on better if little people believed that big ones _have_ their troubles, and -- if big people believed and remembered the same thing about little ones.
Some children seem wise before their time. They early learn what "sympathy" means -- they begin almost before they can talk to try to bear some part of other people's burdens.