The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1896-05-24
PHOTOGRAPHS.
Pictures from the Lives Of Common
PeOple-By One OF Them.

The Sun had just fallen from the treetop
in which he had become entangled, and had
dropped with an audible plump into the
Nowhere land. The Man Who Saw came out
Of his front door and sat down on the edge
OF the veranda with his back against a
post He was bare-headed, shirt-sleeved
and carried in one hand a gray cloth-bound
copy of Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush" He
hoped. as he had hoped on eleven preceding
evenings, to be able to read few sentences;
he began, as he had begun on eleven pre-
vious occasions OF daily recurrence, to read
Chapter II Of "a Highland Mystic;" and
ON this day, as on its eleven beautiful pre-
decessors, the reading proceeded only as far
as THE Free Kirk people were very proud
Of their vestry because" He never went
further. Just at this critical point in each
attempt at reading, he was interrupted by
something that held to his other hand. The
something was alive, and wore a white dim
ity dress with short sleeves; it had blue
eyes, tangled yellow hair that wanted to
curl; and the pink-cheeked face. with its
slabbery chin and constantly jabbering lips
wore a look Of fixed determination. Each
evening, as the father reached the word
because" two little staggering legs in tan
stockings calmly walked off the sheer edge
Of the veranda, never doubling the willing
ness and ability of the father to catch her.
Yet the Man Who Saw did not fret at the
interruption, as it always brought something
even more interesting than that he sought
in the book. The square on which he lived
was bigger book, and even truer to nature
than the sweet Maclaren's sunshiny ram
blngs.
There were always dozen children in
sight-or nearly always. When these dis
appeared for little while. there was his
own little tot just beginning to stag
ger about. ask long, earnest ques-
tons in a language never yet in
terpreted outside OF Babyland, and
to keep her parents in constant fever
lest she should kill herself in some horrid
and unladylike manner. And sometimes
when the baby was looking unusually sweet
and toddling around in a manner more ami
mated than usual. all the little Girls on that
square and part OF the next came and sat
down on one foot OF the soft lawn, chewed
grass blades. played with the baby and de-
clared she was too sweet for anything. And
when the girls came = everybody who has
ever been a natural boy or a natural girl
knows what foliowed-the boys They tick
led the girls ears with straws. dropped but
tons down their backs. gave war-whoops.
anu euUcu Dy iJluS nat Oh the grass, StOm-
ach downward and propped up on their ell
bows. telling preposterous yarns TO aston
sh the girls. In this they never succeeded
They had not yet learned that the microbes
of mischief and grotesque Imagination are
as largely developed in the modern girl as in
the modern boy.
That is why the Man Who Saw always
came out on the veranda with his baby ev-
cry evening. He loved the big book better
than the cloth-bound volume. He did not
object to Interruptions when it brought him
the pleasure OF seeing and hearing the chill
dren; for these his chiefest pleasures