She begins: "When I was a little boy I lived by myself.

All the bread and cheese I got I laid upon the shelf," and so on to the end.

The mother's object is accomplished.

The boy is amused.
He is greatly interested and pleased by the wonderful phenomenon taking place within him of curious images awakened in his mind by means of sounds entering his ear--images of a little boy living alone, of his reaching up to put bread and cheese upon a shelf, and finally of his attempting to wheel a little wife home--the story ending with the breaking and downfall of the wheelbarrow, wife and all.

He does not reflect philosophically upon the subject, but the principal element of the pleasure afforded him is the wonderful phenomenon of the formation of such vivid and strange images in his mind by means of the mere sound of his mother's voice.
He knows at once, if any half-formed reflections arise in his mind at all, that what his mother has told him is not true--that is, that the words and images which they awaken in his mind had no actual realities corresponding with them.