The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1895-10-24
The Eresh-Air ohiIdren.

w. ~. HoWelA IN 'llfe ana Letters III har
per's Weellly.l
One of the prettiest things of the
summer now idling towards its end was
a scene which Life and Letters wit
messed one evening at the station in a
little village not far from New York,
While the summer was yet in its July
lustihood. 1t was the arrival of a car
tul of those children of the slumS who
are sent into the country by the differ
ent fresh-air funds during the hot
weather for a fortnight's outing. Life
and Letters had often heard and even
read of this charity, but they had new
en- expected to witness its operation,
and in view of it they had to make the
reflection that if you only live long
enough you will see everything, for
naturally you will wish to go every
where in the effort to kill time, which
has failed to kill you.
The whistle Of the approaching train
sounded, and there was a visible sem
sation in the crowd, which pressed for
ward on the platform. The cars had
hardly come TO a stand when a tumult
VI bpyS with IIlllG puHulGS VI ClOlIllil5
in their hands burst from the door of
the foremost car and swarmed down
the steps and out upon the platform,
where they began to beat one another
upon the back and over the head with
their bundles in token of their trans
| port. An equal number Of little girls
| followed more demurely, after the poor
| manner of a sex which convention does
not permit the athletic expression Of its
emotions. But there could be no doubt
that the little girls were happy too,
and if they were kept with less diff
Guilty than the boys from hurting them
selves under the wheels Of the depart
| ing train, they did their best to fill the
hands of the agent who had brought
them from New York, and of the priest
| who had gone down to meet them at
| the Junction. These, and several la
| dies of the village who seemed to be
| there by authority, at last got the chill
| dren in some sort of order, rank be-
| hind rank and then, before those who
We're to be their hosts began to choose
among them, Life and Letters could see
| how very pretty the most of them were.
| IHeS might almost NAVE peeil taken
| for their good looks rather than their
good behavior, or their need, or what
ever really determ ned the cnGrity to
send them and not Others; and this de-
partnent could not help thinking with
pride what very handsome race the
| Americans of the future would be when
| all these little aliens were grandfathers
and grandmothers. Aliens they all
seemed to be; German, Irish, Italian,
| Polish Russian, Bohemian; but as tc
| the East Side races of this metropolis
one must not always be sure that there
Is not here and there an American
among them. They We're all surpris-
ingly well dressed, too, and one could
ache at heart little, if one would, te
| think how long and late weary mother
hands might have made and mended
and washed and ironed, to their pretty
effect in the hot rooms Of tenements
| the night before. One could see with
| less pathos the evidence of anxiety in
| the good newspaper which had collect.
| ed the fund to send them, and which
notified the fact to all beholders in the