f a better
or more reasonable hereafter than that. We get a glimpse of it here in
the play of children--little children who perhaps have left the truth
not so far behind.

"Fashion ladies" must relax now and then. Even in late November there
were pleasant sunny days when the Hope and the Joy roamed the fields or
laid a long board across a tumbled wall and teetered away vacation hours
to the tune of

Seesaw, Marjory Daw,
Sold her bed and laid on straw,

which was probably first sung a good way back--by Cain and Abel, maybe,
in some corner of Eden. No, it would be outside of Eden, for their
parents had moved, as I remember, before their arrival. And I wonder if
little Cain and Abel had a fire to gather around when the fall evenings
began to close in, before the lamps were lit, and if they ever had cakes
and toast and sandwiches, with hot chocolate, from an old blue china set
from a corner cupboard, and were as hungry as bears, and rocked while
they ate and drank and watched the firelight dance on the tea-things and
table-legs. If not, I am afraid they missed something, and perhaps it is
not to be wondered at that little Cain became gloomy and savage and
outcast when he grew up. A fireplace with a cozy cup of chocolate and a
bite of something filling will civilize children about as quickly as
anything I know of, and would, I am sure, have been good for Cain.

[Illustration]

We often cooked by our fireplace. We hung a kettle over it for tea and
toasted bread on Captain Ben Meeker's long iron toasting-fork. Then at
supper-time we would rake out the coals, and on one of the old
gridirons brought down from the attic would broil a big steak, or some
chops, and if they did not taste better than any other steak or chops we
certainly imagined they did, and I am still inclined to think we were
right. Then there was popcorn, and potatoes roasted in the ashes, and
apples on sticks, though this was likely to be later in the evening,
when the tribe was hungry again, for children in vacation are always
hungry, just little savages, and the best way to civilize them is to
feed them, as I have said. It was too bad they must go back to school,
and sometimes we wished there were never any such things as schools; and
then again, when the house was one wild riot and hurrah, just at a
moment when I wanted to reflect, I could appreciate quite fully the
beauties of education and certain remote places where under careful
direction it c