to the game. Though the children had been
only a little time in the kindergarten, and were not fully baptized
into the spirit of play, still the boys were generally willing to
personate the father bird, since their delight in the active and manly
occupation of flying about the room seeking worms overshadowed their
natural repugnance to feeding the young. This accomplished, we played
"Master Rider," in which a small urchin capered about on a hobby
horse, going through a variety of adventures, and finally returning
with presents to wife and children. This in turn became a matter of
natural experience, and we moved towards our grand _coup d'etat._

Once a week we had dolls' day, when all the children who owned them
brought their dolls, and the exercises were ordered with the single
view of amusing and edifying them. The picture of that circle of
ragged children comes before me now and dims my eyes with its pathetic
suggestions.

Such dolls! Five-cent, ten-cent dolls; dolls with soiled clothes and
dolls in a highly indecorous state of nudity; dolls whose ruddy hues
of health had been absorbed into their mothers' systems; dolls made
of rags, dolls made of carrots, and dolls made of towels; but all
dispensing odors of garlic in the common air. Maternal affection,
however, pardoned all limitations, and they were clasped as fondly to
maternal bosoms as if they had been imported from Paris.

"Bless my soul!" might have been the unspoken comment of these tiny
mothers. "If we are only to love our offspring when handsome and well
clothed, then the mother-heart of society is in a bad way!"

Dolls' day was the day for lullabies. I always wished I might gather
a group of stony-hearted men and women in that room and see them melt
under the magic of the scene. Perhaps you cannot imagine the union of
garlic and magic, nevertheless, O ye of little faith, it may exist.
The kindergarten cradle stood in the centre of the circle, and the
kindergarten doll, clean, beautiful, and well dressed, lay inside the
curtains, waiting to be sung to sleep with the other dolls. One little
girl after another would go proudly to the "mother's chair" and rock
the cradle, while the other children hummed their gentle lullabies. At
this juncture even the older boys (when the influence of the music had
stolen in upon their senses) would glance from side to side longingly,
as much as to say,--

"O Lord, why didst Thou not make thy servant a female, that he m