River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1903-12-10
COUNTRY CHILDREN.
enjoy Much More of Natures Beauty
and Freedom Than Those
of the City.

| The toUn-bred child has nothing to
replace that vista of dreams which the
country child can retrieve at will, says
the London Spectator. He moves in set
and ordered ways, even as the stars in
their courses. Certain walks he goes,
demure and restricted; he trots sedate-
ly beside his nurse, or lays gloved hand
in hers. Shouting and running are for
hidden. Shops and people and traffic,
in eternal monotony of noise and hurry,
are all that is offered for his outdoor
consideration. The sunset is shut away
from him behind bricks and mortar.
The stars he has only seen by stealth
through curtained windows. Dew is
matter he cannot comprehend; snow is
something of a peculiar and adhesive
dirtiness. Trees there are, and grass
plots. but they have neither scent nor
significance for him. The flowers in
the parks and squares are under
regime as orderly as his own, appear
ing with punctual precision in their
appointed times even as he comes down
to dessert O. nights. Birds mean SPAR
rows; there are others mentioned in
rhymes and fairy tales, but he has never
met them, any more than dwarfs or
talking cats. In his nursery, of course,
he romps and registers; but the whole
breadth and depth of outdoor life are
denied to him. All his years, whatever
he may achieve or enjoy, he will be
vacant of those glorious gains, barren
of those golden memories, which are the
inali6nable heritage of his country
cousin
Meanwhile the country child is lay
ing up store of Renaissance that will
De companion to him to his latest hour
The seasons are no empty names to
him; each has it's unique and proper
delights; none is inferior to another.
Day and night are his, especially that
luminous mystery of summer night
which is the haunt of vague romantic
visions. The sunrise he knows and the
sunset, and all the unimaginable eX-
panses Of bare heaven, visible from rim
to rim. He is far-sighted, because there
are such untrammeIed distances for his
sight to travel; and yet he may be
keen observer of minute detail, expert
In the tiny variations of insects, birds
and flowers. At four or five years old
his sense of adventure wakes irrepress-
ible, leading him into paths of peril
and punishment, and runaway episodes
with impotent conclusions. He may
shout and gambol unchallenged along
the leafy lanes, his legs and his lungs
vying in exuberant vitality, none to
say him nay.
The procession of the months goes
past him, fraught with boundless posi-
bilities of event. Snowballing is a
cleanly and exhilarating sport; an in
verted chair makes an excellent sledge;
glossy black regions of untrodden ice
offer prospects of skating and sliding,
very different from the muddy pande-
monium of London pond. He counts
the signs and tokens of spring and is
not ashamed to a-primrOsing. The
whole joyous circumstance of birds
nesting lies an open book before him;
his legs may be full Of furze pricks and
his coat of rents, but there are precious
eggs in his pocket handkerchief. He is
knowledgable in the ways Of feathered
folk and the rusty leaves at the foot of
the oak tree do not conceal from him the
nightingale's olive-colored eggs. While
his sisters are weaving daisy chains or
tossing cowslip balls he is immersed in
the precarious ecstasy of hunting pig
nuts; or he is away with elder boys to
the trout stream to return rosily tri-
umphant. He excavates piratical caves
in the sandpit or joys a seesaw on deity
poised timber. His little garden claims
devoted attention.; he is an adept with
rake and hoe and carries his first fruits
Of cress and radishes in proud tribute
to a prouder mother.
A CURIOUS WAGER.