lay them with a certain self-consciousness; without that
_abandon_ of an earlier time.

A short while ago I happened to call upon a friend of mine on an
afternoon when, her nursemaid being "out," she was alone with her
children--a boy of seven and a girl of five. I found them together in
the nursery; my friend was sewing, and the children were playing
checkers. Apparently, they were entirely engrossed in their game.
Immediately after greeting me they returned to it, and continued it with
seeming obliviousness of the presence of any one excepting themselves.
But when their mother, in the course of a few moments, rose, and said to
me: "Let's go down to the library and have tea," both the children
instantly stopped playing--though one of them was in the very thick of
"taking a king"--and cried, "Oh, don't go; stay with us!"

[ILLUSTRATION: "DID YOU PLAY IT THIS WAY?"]

"My dears," my friend said, "you don't need us; you have your game.
Aren't you happy with it?"

"Why, yes," the little girl admitted; "but we want you to see us being
happy!"

Only to-day, as I came up my street, a crowd of small children burst
upon me from behind a hedge; and, shouting and gesticulating, surrounded
me. Their faces were streaked with red, and blue, and yellow lines,
applied with crayons; feathers of various domestic kinds ornamented
their hats and caps, and they waved in the air broken laths, presumably
gifts from a builder at work in the vicinity.

"We are Indians!" they shrieked; "wild Indians! See our war-paint, and
feathers, and tomahawks! We hunt the pale face!"

While I sought about for an appropriate answer to make, my little
neighbors suddenly became calm.

"Don't we children have fun?" one of them questioned me. "You like to
see us having fun, don't you?"

I agreed, and again their war-whoops began. They followed me to my door
in a body. Inside I still heard them playing, but with lessened din.
Several times during the afternoon, hearing their noise increase, I
looked out; each time I saw that the arrival of another grown-up pale
face was the occasion of the climactic moment in the game. In order to
be wild Indians with perfect happiness the small players demanded an
appreciative audience to see them being happy.

Some of us in America are prone to deprecate in the children of our
Nation this pleased consciousness of their own enjoyment, this desire
for our presence as sympathetic onlookers at those of their games in
wh