e. But each is
left to his spontaneous action.

[Illustration: "Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats ...
followed the Piper for their lives."]

In the course of several days several sets of children have been allowed
to try; then if any of them are notably good in the several _roles_, they
are given an especial privilege in that story, as was done with the
retelling. When a child expresses a part badly, the teacher sometimes asks
if anyone thinks of another way to do it; from different examples
offered, the children then choose the one they prefer; this is adopted. At
no point is the teacher apparently teaching. She lets the audience teach
itself and its actors.

The children played a good many stories for me during my visit in
Providence. Of them all, _Red Riding Hood_, _The Fox and the Grapes_, and
_The Lion and the Mouse_ were most vividly done.

It will be long before the chief of the Little Red Riding Hoods fades from
my memory. She had a dark, foreign little face, with a good deal of darker
hair tied back from it, and brown, expressive hands. Her eyes were so full
of dancing lights that when they met mine unexpectedly it was as if a
chance reflection had dazzled me. When she was told that she might play,
she came up for her riding hood like an embodied delight, almost dancing
as she moved. (Her teacher used a few simple elements of stage-setting for
her stories, such as bowls for the Bears, a cape for Riding Hood, and so
on.)

[Illustration: "The Piper piped and the children danced, ... all but one
little lame boy, who could not keep up with the rest."]

The game began at once. Riding Hood started from the rear corner of the
room, basket on arm; her mother gave her strict injunctions as to
lingering on the way, and she returned a respectful "Yes, mother." Then
she trotted round the aisle, greeting the woodchopper on the way, to the
deep wood which lay close by the teacher's desk. There master wolf was
waiting, and there the two held converse,--master wolf very crafty indeed,
Red Riding Hood extremely polite. The wolf then darted on ahead and
crouched down in the corner which represented grandmother's bed. Riding
Hood tripped sedately to the imaginary door, and knocked. The familiar
dialogue followed, and with the words "the better to eat you with, my
dear!" the wolf clutched Red Riding Hood, to eat her up. But we were not
forced to undergo the threatened scene of horrid carnage, as the
woodchopper