"Watch them!" "Oh!" says Johnny, uttering the child's little exclamation of satisfaction.
He looks at the flakes as they fall, catching one after another with his eye, and following it in its meandering descent.

He will, perhaps, occupy himself several minutes in silence and profound attention, in bringing fully to his mind the idea that a snow-storm consists of a mass of descending flakes of snow falling through the air.

To us, who are familiar with this fact, it seems nothing to observe this, but to him the analyzing of the phenomenon, which before he had looked upon as one grand spectacle filling the whole sky, and only making an impression on his mind by its general effect, and resolving it into its elemental parts of individual flakes fluttering down through the air, is a great step.

It is a step which exercises his nascent powers of observation and reflection very deeply, and gives him full occupation for quite a little interval of time.

At length, when he has familiarized himself with this idea, he asks again, perhaps, "Where do the flakes come from, mother ?" "Out of the sky." "Oh!" says Johnny again, for the moment entirely satisfied.
One might at first think that these words would be almost unmeaning, or, at least, that they would give the little questioner no real information.