The American Child Part 6

He spent a happy hour playing with the libation cup and the _ushabti_-- trophies of one of the most remarkable explorations of our era. I did not tell him what they were. He knew concerning them all he needed to know--that they could be "employed as toys." Perhaps the very tiniest of the "old Egyptian boys" had known only this, too.

"Little girls do not play with dolls in these days!" is a remark that has been made with great frequency of late years. Those of us who have many friends among little girls often wonder what is at the basis of this rumor. There have always been girls who did not care for dolls. In the old-fas.h.i.+oned story for girls there was invariably one such. In "Little Women," as we all recall, it was Jo. No doubt the persons who say that little girls no longer play with dolls count among their childish acquaintances a disproportionate number of Jos. Playing with dolls would seem to be too fundamentally little-girlish ever to fall into desuetude.

"Girls, as well as boys, play with dogs in these days!" is another plaintive cry we often hear. But were there ever days when this was not the case? From that far-off day when Iseult "had always a little brachet with her that Tristram gave her the first time that ever she came into Cornwell," to the time when Dora cuddled Jip, even down to our own day, when the heroine of "Queed" walks forth with her Behemoth, girls both in fact and in fiction have played with dogs; played with them no less than boys. This proclivity on the part of the little girls of our Nation is not distinctively American, nor especially childish, nor particularly girl-like; it is merely human.

In few activities do the children of our Nation reveal what we call the "American sense of humor" so clearly as in their play. Slight ills, and even serious misfortunes, they instinctively endeavor to lift and carry with a laugh. It would be difficult to surpa.s.s the gay heroism to which they sometimes attain.

Most of us remember the little hunchbacked boy in "Little Men" who, when the children played "menagerie," chose the part of the dromedary.

"Because," he explained, "I have a hump on my back!"

Among my acquaintances there is a little girl who is blind. One day I invited her to go picnicking with a party of normal children, one of whom was her elder sister. She was accustomed to the company of children who could see, and she showed a ready disposition to join in the games of the other picnickers. Her sister stayed close beside her and guarded and guided her.

"Let's play blind man's buff," one of the children heedlessly suggested after a long course of "drop-the-handkerchief."

The other children with seeing eyes instantly looked at the child who was sightless, and whispered, "Ss.h.!.+ You'll hurt her feelings!"

But the little blind girl scrambled eagerly to her feet. "Yes," she said, brightly; "let's play blind man's buff! _I_ can be 'It' _all_ the time!"

There is a phrase that has been very widely adopted by Americans.

Scarcely one of us but uses it--"playing the game." Our highest commendation of a man or a woman has come to be, "He plays the game," or "She plays the game." Another phrase, often upon our lips, is "according to the rules of the game." We Americans talk of the most sacred things of life in the vocabulary of children at play. May not this be because the children of our Nation play so well; so much better than we grown- ups do anything?

III

THE COUNTRY CHILD

One spring, not long ago, a friend of mine, knowing that I had a desire to spend the summer in the "real country," said to me, "Why don't you go to a farm somewhere in New England? Nothing could be more 'really countrified' than that! You would get what you want there."

Her advice rather appealed to my fancy. I at once set about looking for a New England farmhouse in which I might be received as a "summer boarder." Hearing of one that was situated in a particularly healthful and beautiful section of New England, I wrote to the woman who owned and operated it, telling her what I required, and asking her whether or no she could provide me with it. "Above all things," I concluded my letter, "I want quiet."

Her somewhat lengthy reply ended with these words: "The bedroom just over the music-room is the quietest in the house, because no one is in the music-room excepting for a social hour after supper. I can let you have that bedroom."

My friend had said that nothing was so "really countrified" as a New England farm. But a "music-room," a "social hour after supper!" The terms suggested things distinctly urban.

I sent another letter to the woman to whom this amazing farmhouse belonged. "I am afraid I cannot come," I wrote. "I want a simpler place." Then, yielding to my intense curiosity, I added: "Are many of your boarders musical? Is the music-room for their use?"

"No place could be simpler than this," she answered, by return mail. "I don't know whether any of my boarders this year will be musical or not.

Some years they have been. The music-room isn't for my boarders, especially; it is for my niece. She is very musical, but she doesn't get much time for practising in the summer."

She went on to say that she hoped I would decide to take the bedroom over the music-room. I did. I had told her that, above all things, I desired quiet; but, after reading her letters, I think I wished, above all things, to see the music-room, and the niece who was musical.

"She will probably be a shy, awkward girl," one of my city neighbors said to me; "and no doubt she will play 'The Maiden's Prayer' on a melodeon which will occupy one corner of the back sitting-room. You will see."

In order to reach the farm it was necessary not only to take a journey on a train, but also to drive three miles over a hilly road. The little station at which I changed from the train to an open two-seated carriage in waiting for me was the usual rural village, with its one main street, its commingled post-office and dry-goods and grocery store, and its small white meeting-house.

The farm, as we approached it, called to mind the pictures of old New England farms with which all of us are familiar. The house itself was over a hundred years old, I afterward learned; and had for that length of time "been in the family" of the woman with whom I had corresponded.

She was on the broad doorstone smiling a welcome when, after an hour's drive, the carriage at last came to a stop. Beside her was her niece, the girl whom I had been so impatient to meet. She was neither shy nor awkward.

"Are you tired?" she inquired. "What should you like to do? Go to your room or rest downstairs until supper-time? Supper will be ready in about twenty minutes."

"I'd like to see the music-room," I found myself saying.

"Oh," exclaimed the girl, her face brightening, "are you musical? How nice!"

As she spoke she led the way into the music-room. It was indeed a back sitting-room. Its windows opened upon the barnyard; glancing out, I saw eight or ten cows, just home from pasture, pus.h.i.+ng their ways to the drinking-trough. I looked around the little room. On the walls were framed photographs of great composers, on the mantelshelf was a metronome, on the centre-table were two collections of cla.s.sic piano pieces, and in a corner was,--not a melodeon,--but a piano. The maker's name was on it--a name famous in two continents.

"Your aunt told me you were musical," I said to the girl. "I see that the piano is your instrument."

"Yes," she a.s.sented. "But I don't play very well. I haven't had many lessons. Only one year with a really good teacher."

"Who was your teacher?" I asked idly. I fully expected her to say, "Some one in the village through which you came."

"Perhaps you know my teacher," she replied; and she mentioned the name of one of the best pianists and piano teachers in New England.

"Most of the time I've studied by myself," she went on; "but one year auntie had me go to town and have good lessons."

At supper this girl waited on the table, and after supper she washed the dishes and made various preparations for the next morning's breakfast.

Then she joined her aunt and the boarders, of whom there were nine, on the veranda.

"I should so like to hear you play something on the piano," I said to her.

She at once arose, and, followed by me, went into the music-room, which was just off the veranda. "I only play easy things," she said, as she seated herself at the piano.

Whereupon she played, with considerable skill, one of Schumann's simpler compositions, one of Schubert's, and one of Grieg's. Then, turning around on the piano-stool, she asked me, "Do you like Debussy?"

I thought of what my neighbor had prophesied concerning "The Maiden's Prayer." Debussy! And this girl was a country girl, born and bred on that dairy farm, educated at the little district school of the vicinity; and, moreover, trained to take a responsible part in the work of the farm both in winter and in summer. Her family for generations had been "country people."

It was not surprising that she had made the acquaintance of Debussy's music; nor that she had at her tongue's end all the arguments for and against it. Her music-teacher was, of course, accountable for this. What was remarkable was that she had had the benefit of that particular teacher's instruction; that, country child though she was, she had been given exactly the kind, if not the amount, of musical education that a city child of musical tastes would have been given.

My neighbor had predicted a shy, awkward girl, a melodeon, and "The Maiden's Prayer." One of our favorite fallacies in America is that our country people are "countrified." Nothing could be further from the truth, especially in that most important matter, the up-bringing of their children. Country parents, like city parents, try to get the best for their children. That "best" is very apt to be identical with what city parents consider best. Circ.u.mstances may forbid their giving it to their children as lavishly as do city parents; conditions may force them to alter it in various ways in order to fit it to the needs of boys and girls who live on a farm, and not on a city street; but in some sort they attempt to obtain it, and, having obtained it, to give it to their children.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THE CHILDREN--THEY ARE SUCH DEARS!"]

They are as ambitious for the education of their children as city parents; and to an amazing extent they provide for them a similar academic training. An astonis.h.i.+ng proportion of the students in our colleges come from country homes, in which they have learned to desire collegiate experience; from country schools, where they have received the preparation necessary to pa.s.s the required college entrance examinations. Surrounded, as we in cities are, by schools especially planned, especially equipped, to make children ready for college, we may well wonder how country children in rural district schools, with their casual schedules and meagre facilities, are ever so prepared. By visiting even a few district schools we may in part discover.

I happened, not a great while ago, to spend an autumn month on a farm in a very spa.r.s.ely settled section of New Hamps.h.i.+re.

One morning at breakfast, shortly after Labor Day, my landlady said: "School opens next week. The teacher is coming here to board for the winter. I expect her to-day."

"Where does she come from?" I asked.

"From Smith College," the farmer replied, unexpectedly. "This is her second year of teaching our school."