The San Francisco call., 1897-09-26

She deliberately pulled at her little
dress before she made answer.
"Get made up," she said with comical
mimicry of her elders. Must go on
pretty SOON"
Her pretty bare arms and neck and
shoulders shone in the glaring light of the
cleaning in candescent>. She shook the
tangled hair persistently out of its right
fuI place, and laughed gleefully when they
warned her that she'd be late. She
danced up and own in her chair, real
bit of humanity amid all the sham.
Across the room little Nina Cook paint
ed her thin, childish face and shook out
her curls languidly and gravely, and
dressed half heartedly, because she was
tired.
1.-TWO performances a day is too much
for the children" some one said.
"Are you tired, Venie?" the older child
asked the younger.
"Tired?' she said wonderingly, as
though she doubted the meaning of the
word. Then she laughed, shaking her
head. Pm too little, she answered.
An! and indeed she was. RightfnIly
the wideawake eyes should have been
shut tight, and the chattering lips have
been smiling only at the childish dreams.
For my part l love TO see the children.
Their artlessness and beauty is more APP
peaiiEg than the more mature emotions
which We live through our separate selves
day by day. But there is but one child
hood for each of us-but one short time
when we can live for the Joy of the hour,
with no weight of responsibility upon us.
To rob life of that time is 10 rob it of the
only sweetness it will ever know; is TO
incumber it from the cradle TO the grave
with the beaviness of necessity, which
comes soon enough, GUd knows, and
stays long enough when nature alone has
Is way. And it is not, l take it, case
for any society, whether it be for the pre-
vention of cruelty to children or animals,
and they might as well be consol, dated as
far as any distinction in methods of work
ing goes. Probably it ought not to he pre-
vented al all. Tor there is way that each
must go and life that must be lived in
this vast scheme of things, and yet
Well, we do not see the whole of it
would raise cur voice against the rising of
the sun and the changing of the tides.
Can bid the cyclone change its way and
the lightning cease. ana what comes
of itP
"They laugh too much,' complained
the little singer. putting her head to one
side and. shaking it resignedly. "Then
have to stop because they can't hear me,
can they? And / don't like to stand still
and do nothing 1t keeps me too long"
Verify the unspoiled cleverness of this
oh &c to
the laughter is the result of her success.
1t merely annoys her because she mas to
wait.
81 like to sing," she said. II don't
know why. Just because / do, guess.
Mamma said / might stop and tell the
people that they weren't the only shirts
in the laundry because they had to be
done up; but, then. maybe they'd think l
was fresh, and don't want them to.'
"Why not?'
Because fresh kids aren't nice" she
answered, as demurely as though she
were aging, "Prunes, prisms and pota-
toes"
/ paused at the door of the theater to
see her come on. 1t was funny. l didn't
blame the audience for sitting on the
edges of their seats and laughing; but the
pretty baby figure was so distorted in the
ridiculous costume and the pretty man.
ners were SO completely changed that
we'll, l think I'd rather love than laugh
And yet when l went out in spite of NOR
alizing my pulses were beating in rhythm
with the tune. and l was humming alb
surdly-
''Oh, I am Just regIar sport,
And tough Muldoon am l."
And there wasn't much trouble in the
world just then-not very much; and
thought OF that crowded house of laugh
ing human beings. Bless hersweet nature.
which is as yet as pure and unspoiled as
the bio SONS that the dew shines ON. Let
her sing. and sing herself into all of our
hearts, for we need, all of US, to leugh
more. MURIEE BAILY.