gymnastic apparatus,
laid out at the foot of a picturesque tower, one of the line of signal
towers, now mostly demolished, which, before the introduction of the
telegraph, flashed news from Warsaw to St. Petersburg in the then
phenomenally short space of twenty-four hours. The children's favorite
amusement is the "net." Sailors of the guard set up a full-rigged ship's
mast, surrounded, about two feet from the ground, by a wide sweep of
close-meshed rope netting well tarred. Boys and girls of ambition climb
the rigging, swing, and drop into the net. The little ones never weary
of dancing about on its yielding surface. A stalwart, gentle giant of a
sailor watches over the safety of the merrymakers, and warns, teaches,
or helps them, if they wish it.

Their nurses, with pendent bosoms and fat shoulders peeping through the
transparent muslin of their chemises, make a bouquet of colors, with
their gay _sarafani_, their many-hued cashmere caps attached to
pearl-embroidered, coronet-shaped _kokoshniki_, and terminating in
ribbons which descend to their heels, and are outshone in color only by
the motley assemblage of beads on their throats.

Here, round the gymnastic apparatus and the net, one is able for the
first time to believe solidly in the existence of Russian children. In
town, in the winter, one has doubted it, despite occasional coveys of
boys in military greatcoats, book-knapsacks of sealskin strapped to
their shoulders to keep their backs straight, and officer-like caps. The
summer garb of the lads from the gymnasia and other institutes consists
of thin, dark woolen material or of coarse gray linen, made in the
blouse or Russian shirt form, which portraits of Count Lyeff
Nikolaevitch Tolstoy, the author, have rendered familiar to foreigners.
It must not be argued from this fact that Count Tolstoy set the fashion;
far from it. It is the ordinary and sensible garment in common use,
which he has adopted from others, not they from him. It can be seen on
older students any day, even in winter, in the reading-room of the
Imperial Public Library in St. Petersburg, on the imperial choir in the
Winter Palace as undress uniform for week-day services, and elsewhere.

Some indulgent mothers make silk blouses for their sons, and embroider
them with cross-stitch patterns in colored floss, as was the fashion a
number of years ago, when a patriotic outburst of sentiment was
expressed by the adoption of the "national costume," for