Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1891-08-14

The Country MS seen by the Fresh Air
children.

The Country ms seen by the Fresh Air
children.
The fresh air children see the country
with their own eyes, not with yours or
mine They steadily refuse to crafty the
taste of sentimental and eXacting persons
by becoming morbidly lost i'm marvel or
rapt in poetic fancy. Occasionally one
finds a child whose mind is sensitive, and
who develops a rare appreciation of the
beauty of living close to the heart of
things, but usually these charity children
enjoy whatever comes to them in just the
same unrefecting, prosaic, wholesome way
that we find most gratifying and healthful
in our own children.
Very strange and wonderful everything
is to them, to be sure; but in land where
everything is strange and wonderful, one
loses sight of special marvel. a peculiar
and disastrous hail storm once swept over
farm where a dozen children were stay
ing The children of the household were
terrified, but the little visitors were per-
fectly calm.
81 thought maybe it always rained sharp
glass in the country" said one little girl,
when they asked her why she wasn't
afraid
Here are a few incidents and anecdotes
set down as they came to me from troop of
little ones who came back few days ago
from fortnight at Glens Falls. Some are
sad, some are funny, some only childlike.
hope they are all significant. gathered
a lot of these children about me and asked
them what they had seen and done.
81 seen a cow" shrills one little girl, in
stantly. Cows has horns, and lets down
milk, and hooks you when your hair is the
same color as hers"
"PoOhr' says the handsome Italian boy
back of her, who had come as listener
''pooh. they don't neither.H
The girl turns a look of calm scOrn upon
him. 81 seen the cows, and you didn't"
she responds; and the boy feels the force
of the argument from experience and re-
tires.
They talk breathlessly and with eager
enthusiasm, not only those who are just
home, with their experiences fresh upon
them, but those who have to 90 back
year or two for what they tell. 1t is won
derful how sharply and clearly the details
are preserved.
'Wot de country is like is dis" says
small, red-haired Irish boy, spreading his
arms wide, while the look of one who
wishes to give an accurate and careful i'm
preston comes into his sun-burned, freck
led face: 'dere's de whole worl' an it's
green, an dey amt no houses, an you kin
hear a mile wen You hOller, cause it's so
still. An all de streets is dirt an soft, an
de birds sings, an deres cherries on de
trees.
\ pastoral, surely, that you and l might
wish to have written in so few words and
with so true a touch,
In the number of those newly returned is
Bertha Bertha is bue-eyed little Ger
man girl from Gotham court, who had new
er seen the grass and the trees until now
! Bertha has poet soul in that squat. stur-
DIV body of hers. IL never saw a child
like her" said the good woman of the
farm where the child had stayed And it
/ is very likely such children are not com
mon.
WAS it very strange in the country?"
| asked her
Il could hear the clock tick all the time, -
answered the child.
Go down to Gotham court and YOU will
understand that. All day there is the
long rumble of the city's streets Some
times the sound is loud and smites sharply
on the nerves: sometimes ii is heavy and
dull, or pierced through with the cries of
men and of little children. Can you think
what il would be to live where You could
never be sure that You heard the sound OF
your time piece. and to come to hold it as
the strangest of surprises that you could
hear the clock tick all the timer
Most children like the grass and trees,
but this child loved them with an eager,
quivering delight that was pathetic. Ber-
tina seldom joined the children in their
play, but as soon as her meals and her
sleeping-time were over ran out to throw
herself at full length in the grass, face
downward, and with arms wide-stretched,
"a if to gather it all to her bosom. And as
she lay there she would talk to each sepa-
rate grass blade, and stroke the faces OF
the leaves upon the bushes as she passed
by. One morning she came stealing down
with the first pink streaks in the east
"Why don't you sleep, Bertha?' asked
the house mother, as the child came down
the stairs.
The leaves talked and couldn't" SIN
answered. gazing with eager eyes at tn,
open door.
And yet Bertha will probably neve
know that her brotherpoet, Sidney Lanier
wrote long ago
In my sleep was fain of their fellowship.
Fan of the live-nak the marsh and the main;
The little green leaves would not let me alone il
my sleep.
Jumpers Bdzdr.