in the country and villages, and they produce like results in the minds
and hearts of all. The little folks laugh over the Cow, look sober over
the Little Orphan, absorb the morals taught by the Mouse, and are sung
to sleep by the song of the Little Snail.

Sometimes however they, like children in other lands, are skeptical as
to the reality of the stories told in the songs. Thus I remember once
hearing our old nurse telling a number of stories and singing a number
of songs to the little folk in the nursery. They had accepted one after
another the legends as they rolled off the old woman's tongue, without
question, but pretty soon she gave them a version of a Wind Song which
aroused their incredulity. She sang:

Old grandmother Wind has come from the East.
She's ridden a donkey--a dear little beast.
Old mother-in-law Rain has come back again.
She's come from the North on a horse, it is plain.

Old grandmother Snow is coming you know,
From the West on a crane--just see how they go.
And old aunty Lightning has come from the South,
On a big yellow dog with a bit in his mouth.

"There is no grandmother Wind, is there, nurse?"

"No, of course not, people only call her grandmother Wind."

"Why do they call the other mother-in-law Rain?"

"I suppose, because mothers-in-law are often disagreeable, just like
rainy weather."

"And why do they speak of snow and the crane, and lightning and a
yellow dog?"

"I suppose, because a crane is somewhat the color of snow, and a yellow
dog swift and the color of lightning."

CHILDREN AND CHILD-LIFE

Before going to China, I could not but wonder, when I saw a Chinese or
Japanese doll, why it was they made such unnatural looking things for
babies to play with. On reaching the Orient the whole matter was
explained by my first sight of a baby. The doll looks like the child!

Nothing in China is more common than babies. Nothing more helpless.
Nothing more troublesome. Nothing more attractive. Nothing more
interesting.

A Chinese baby is a round-faced little helpless human animal, whose
eyes look like two black marbles over which the skin had been
stretched, and a slit made on the bias. His nose is a little kopje in
the centre of his face, above a yawning chasm which requires constant
filling to insure the preservation of law and order. On his shaved head
are left small tufts of hair in various localities, which give him the
appearance of the plain about