s and woods; and rocky places for climbing. And the
children were happy for a little while; but presently they separated
themselves into parties; and then each party declared it would have a
piece of the garden for its own, and that none of the others should have
anything to do with that piece. Next, they quarrelled violently which
pieces they would have; and at last the boys took up the thing, as boys
should do, "practically," and fought in the flower-beds till there was
hardly a flower left standing; then they trampled down each other's bits
of the garden out of spite; and the girls cried till they could cry no
more; and so they all lay down at last, breathless, in the ruin, and
waited for the time when they were to be taken home in the evening.[10]

Meanwhile, the children in the house had been making themselves happy also
in their manner. For them there had been provided every kind of indoor
pleasure: there was music for them to dance to; and the library was open,
with all manner of amusing books; and there was a museum full of the most
curious shells, and animals, and birds; and there was a workshop, with
lathes and carpenter's tools, for the ingenious boys; and there were
pretty fantastic dresses, for the girls to dress in; and there were
microscopes, and kaleidoscopes, and whatever toys a child could fancy; and
a table, in the dining-room, loaded with everything nice to eat.

But, in the midst of all this, it struck two or three of the more
"practical" children, that they would like some of the brass-headed nails
that studded the chairs; and so they set to work to pull them out.
Presently, the others, who were reading, or looking at shells, took a
fancy to do the like; and, in a little while, all the children, nearly,
were spraining their fingers, in pulling out brass-headed nails. With all
that they could pull out, they were not satisfied; and then, everybody
wanted some of somebody else's. And at last, the really practical and
sensible ones declared, that nothing was of any real consequence, that
afternoon, except to get plenty of brass-headed nails; and that the books,
and the cakes, and the microscopes were of no use at all in themselves,
but only, if they could be exchanged for nail-heads. And at last they
began to fight for nail-heads, as the others fought for the bits of
garden. Only here and there, a despised one shrank away into a corner, and
tried to get a little quiet with a book, in the midst of the no