and wood-piles, enjoying the sun and the swimming, and picking
up a livelihood by petty thieving and peddling.

Sometimes they all huddle together in some cellar, boys and girls, and
there sleep. In winter they creep back to the tenement-houses, or hire a
bed in the vile lodgings which are found in the Ward. They grow up,
naturally, the wildest little "Topseys" and "Gavroches" that can be
found. Ragged, impudent, sharp, able "to paddle their canoe" through all
the rapids of the great city--the most volatile and uncertain of
children; today in school, to-morrow miles away; many of them the most
skillful of petty thieves, and all growing up to prey on the city.

In the midst of this quarter we found an old Public School building--a
dilapidated old shell--which we hired and refitted. It had the especial
advantage of being open to air and light on four sides. We soon
transformed it into one of the most complete and attractive little
agencies of instruction and charity which ever arose in the dark places
of a crowded metropolis. We struck upon a superintendent--Mr. G.
Calder--who, with other good qualities, had the artistic gift--who, by a
few flowers, or leaves, or old engravings, could make any room look
pleasing. He exerted his talent in embellishing this building, and in
making a cheerful spot in the midst of a ward filled with rookeries and
broken-down tenements. In the bit of a back yard he created a beautiful
garden, with shrubbery and flowers, with vases and a cool shaded
seat--and these in a place of the size of a respectable closet. There a
poor child could stand and fancy herself, for a moment, far away in the
country, Thence, on a spring morning, drowning the prevalent smells of
bilge-water and sewers, ascended the sweet odors of hyacinth and
heliotrope, sweet-william and violet. Above, in the school-rooms and the
lodging-rooms, these sweet flowers were scattered about, taming and
refining, for the time, the rough little subjects who frequented them.
Soon a novel reward was proposed, and the best children in the School
were allowed to take a plant home with them, and, if they brought it
back improved in a few months, to receive others as a premium; so that
the School not merely distributed its light of morality and intelligence
in the dreary dens of the Ward, but was represented by cheerful and
fragrant flowers in the windows of poor men's homes.

In the School-room, too, was placed a little aquarium, which bec