Parisian gown, which
is fastened on the side from top to bottom in some mysterious fashion,
by a multitude of tiny buttons and cords. It fits the dear little
mouse like a glove, and terminates in a collar which is an instrument
of torture to a person whose patience has not been developed from year
to year by similar trials. The getting of it on is anguish, and as to
the getting of it off, I heard her moan to her nurse the other night,
as she wriggled her curly head through the too-small exit, "Oh I only
God knows how I hate gettin' peeled out o' this dress!"

The spectacle of a small boy whom I meet sometimes in the horse-cars,
under the wing of his predestinate idiot of a mother, wrings my very
soul. Silk hat, ruffled shirt, silver-buckled shoes, kid gloves,
cane, velvet suit, with one two-inch pocket which is an insult to his
sex,--how I pity the pathetic little caricature! Not a spot has he to
locate a top, or a marble, or a nail, or a string, or a knife, or a
cooky, or a nut; but as a bloodless substitute for these necessities
of existence, he has a toy watch (that will not go) and an embroidered
handkerchief with cologne on it.

As to keeping children too clean for any mortal use, I suppose nothing
is more disastrous. The divine right to be gloriously dirty a large
portion of the time, when dirt is a necessary consequence of direct,
useful, friendly contact with all sorts of interesting, helpful
things, is too clear to be denied.

The children who have to think of their clothes before playing with
the dogs, digging in the sand, helping the stableman, working in the
shed, building a bridge, or weeding the garden, never get half their
legitimate enjoyment out of life. And unhappy fate, do not many of us
have to bring up children without a vestige of a dog, or a sand heap,
or a stable, or a shed, or a brook, or a garden! Conceive, if you can,
a more difficult problem than giving a child his rights in a city
flat. You may say that neither do we get ours: but bad as we are,
we are always good enough to wish for our children the joys we miss
ourselves.

Thrice happy is the country child, or the one who can spend a part of
his young life among living things, near to Nature's heart How blessed
is the little toddling thing who can lie flat in the sunshine and
drink in the beauty of the "green things growing," who can live among
the other little animals, his brothers and sisters in feathers and
fur; who can put his hand