to
the best of her ability. But all this was mere play. What Chellalu's
soul yearned for was a real knife, or even only a needle, provided it
would prick and cause red blood to flow. Oh to be allowed to operate
properly, as grown-up people do! Chellalu had seen them do it--had seen
thorns extracted from little bare feet, and small sores dressed; and it
had deeply interested her. The difficulty was, no one would offer a
limb. She walked up and down the nursery one morning with a bit of an
old milk tin, very jagged and sharp and inviting, and secreted in her
curls was a long, bright darning needle; but though she took so much
trouble to prepare, no one would give her a chance to perform, and
Chellalu was disgusted. Someone who did not know her suggested she
should perform on herself. This disgusted her still more. Do doctors
perform on themselves!

Chellalu's latest phase introduces the kindergarten. For an educational
comrade, perceiving our defects in this direction, furnished a
kindergarten for us, and gave us a kind push-off into these pleasant
waters; so the little boat sails gaily, and the children at least are
content.

Chellalu has never been so keen about this institution as the other
babies are. "Do you like the kindergarten?" some one asked her the other
day; and she answered with her usual decision: "Yesh. No." We thought
she was talking at random, and tested her by questions about things
which we knew she liked or disliked. But she was never caught. "Well,
then, don't you like the kindergarten?" "Yesh. No." It was evident she
knew what she meant, and said it exactly. Bits of it she likes, other
bits she thinks might be improved. The trouble is that she has an
objection to sitting in the same place for more than a minute at
longest. Other babies, steady, mature things of five, are already
evolving quite orderly sentences in English--the language in which the
kindergarten is partly taught--and we feel they are getting on. Chellalu
never stops long enough to evolve anything, and yet she seems to be
doing a little. From the first week she has talked all she knew in
unabashed fashion. "Good morning very much" was an early production; and
it was followed by many oddments forgotten now, but comical in effect at
the time, which perhaps may explain the otherwise inexplicable fact that
she sometimes learns something.

One only of those early dashes into the unexplored land is remembered,
because it enriched us wit