rancing to the tune, circling about
and about while they sang and kept time to the music. When the chorus
was reached, every voice was raised to its shrillest pitch:
"Way--down--yonder--in--the--cornfield." And for once in my life the
suggestion of the fields and the woods did not seem hopelessly out of
place in the Tenth Ward crowds. Baby in its tired mother's lap looked on
wide-eyed, out of the sweep of the human current.

The band ceased playing, and the boys took up some game, dodging hither
and thither in pursuit of a ball. How they did it will ever be a mystery
to me. There did not seem to be room for another child, but they managed
as if they had it all to themselves. There was no disorder; no one was
hurt, or even knocked down, unless in the game, and that _was_ the game,
so it was as it should be. Right in the middle of it, the strains of
"Sunday Afternoon," all East Side children's favorite, burst forth, and
out of the seeming confusion came rhythmic order as the whole body of
children moved, singing, along the floor.

Down below, the deserted street--deserted for once in the day--had grown
strangely still. The policeman nodded contentedly: "good business,
indeed." This was a kind of roof patrol he could appreciate. Nothing to
do; less for to-morrow, for here they were not planning raids on the
grocer's stock. They were happy, and when children are happy, they are
safe, and so are the rest of us. It is the policeman's philosophy, and
it is worth taking serious note of.

A warning blast on a trumpet and the "Star-spangled Banner" floated out
over the house-tops. The children ceased dancing: every boy's cap came
off, and the chorus swelled loud and clear:

"--in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

The light shone upon the thousand upturned faces. Scarce one in a
hundred of them all that did not bear silent witness to persecution
which had driven a whole people over the sea, without home, without
flag. And now--my eyes filled with tears. I said it: I am getting old
and silly.

[Illustration: The Fellows and Papa and Mamma shall be invited in yet.]

It was so at the still bigger school at Hester and Orchard streets. At
the biggest of them all, and the finest, the same No. 177 where the
janitor's assistant "shooed" the children away with his club, the once
dismal yard had been festooned with electric lamps that turned night
into day, and abou