The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1913-05-10

ing all afternoon with my little o
who is sturdy n inquiring and 3
years old. We had made islands where
strange natives crouched beneath
sheltering palm trees. We were push
ing civilization to those benighted be-
ings in wonderful ships made of
blocks and laden with all manner OF
treasure.
You are too big, mamma" he said
suddenly. II should ike to have a lit
tie girl to play with. May l have a
little girl to play with me?'
1 don't know what answer / made.
Something weak and shuffling, l am
sure. For l was taken aback and l
saw suddenly that we had not decelV-
ed each other for an instant. l was
tired and bored by the game with my
little boy, and he was tired and bored
by this playing always with great me.
We love each other very much, but at
last we acknowledged that we yearned
for companions, each according to his
age.
There were eason which my little
boy WOuld not have understood why
he has not a whole rolliCking house
full of little brothers and sisters, and 1t
seemed to me for a little while that 1t
had been a mistake to lure this n
lonely little creature from the blue
world. The more I thought Of 1t, the
| more distracted l became until the
sight of that wistful little figure at the
window, watching the school children
go by, %devOuring their every movement
until they were out Of sight, became a
torture to me.
Tried One Child First.
I determined to have children come
to the house. l asked a friend, who
had a little girl, to spend the day with
us. But it was not a success. My
friend and L wanted to talk of grownup
things. The children were shy togeth-
er. My little boy was s~hockingly jeal-
GUS when | too the wee visitor on
my knee. He tumbled her uncere-
m]oniously out of his little Chair-she
resisted and bit his hand, n there
was a battle. My friend gathered up
| her belongings and hurried away with
| partly masked i'll hunor.
Obviously the visit had been a fall
ure, yet something had to be done. Or
so it seemed to me.
/ went to visit four of my neig1bors
and together we devised a plan which
has proved such a pleasant solution
that 1 think it might help other
mothers.
Three of us have one child each.
One of us has two, a little boy and a
| girl, twins. And one of us is without
any child at all. =,
We arranged that our community.
| babies were to spend a certain day OF
the week at each house in turn. me
twins were to have them two DAYS.
Sunday all babies were to visit their
| own parents.
The next question was how the
hours should be spent in the different
houses.
I for one do not approve of compli-
Gated toys, rich and highly seasoned
food or exciting diversions or any sort
and | found that all the other mothers
| at heart agreed with me, though one or
two had nurseries packed with a dis
tracing medley Of intricate mechanl-
cal TOYS and buzzing, screaming, Whis-
! Ting c~Ontrivances supposed to amuSe
children.
The "community" Idea.
We found that one of us was a spe-
| cially good cook; one had studied sing
ing when she was a girl; one had a
| big, roomy electric; one had KINDER
| garten theories, and one, the one who
| has no babies, was q pretty woman
and that's all.
At first his list of community ac-
c~omplishments did not look inspiring,
but the more we thought of 1t the more
we realized that with a little thought
each one of us. could undertake 10
provide a day Of interest for the COM
munity children.
Ine CnliuISH "GIS IA 10
! and early at our house n sunny
| Monday morning. Mother after moth
er hurried away to her home eager FOR
a long uninterrupted day.
The first game we played was the
Undressing game Each baby set to
work taking off coat. leggings, mlttens
and caps and the idea was to see who
couli get done first, arrange his things
| neatly with mittens drawn together
and legCings ready to button on. My
little boys part Of the game was TO
help the smallest with her buttons.
which she hs6 not yet learned TO UNI
fasten
Had to Be "HeIped."
I was surprised to find that. all the
children had to be helped and |
brought out a number of button n
hook frames and for an hour the
whole party was ~engrossed, buttoning
and unbuttoning, tying and untying,
and, most fascinating Of all to a A.
year-old boy, hooking up buttons on a
| leather strip with a shoe hook.
About 10 o'clock I had q little group
around nv knee shouting the names Of
| colors of silk ribbon which l produced
from my sleeves. my apron pocket. my
! collar and ever the folds of my skirt.
| Any baby who said the name OF the
color was given the strip Of ribbon and
allowed to put it somewhere on him
self.
I watched with interest the different
ideas of adornment exhibited by these
| mites. Some tied the ribbon around
| their necks, some around their heads.
7 made little stiff rosettes for the boys,
who pinned them on their proudly
| swelling chests as if they were med
| ais.
|. From his to choosing partners for a
sort of infantile cotillion was an easy
| step. I had, of course, put away all
the surplus bric-a-brac from my living
room and the babies romped and UNI
| bled on the hardwood floor to my mu-
| sic. At first it was chaotic, but in a
very few minutes the children found
that when I had to leave the piano to
| s%traighten out a tangle or soothe in
jured feeling, the music stopped. /
| played gay little tunes quite softly at
first and then more loudly.
When the clock struck II I led the
way to the kitchen, where we all set to
prepare dinner. Of course, I had
| everything practically ready. There
were little Japanese plates and diminu-
tive glasses to admire. Two small
sized sewing tables, with Japanese
towel covers, and four small tub
| benches, were. sufficiently attractive to
keep the. babies interested while I
prepared the scraped beef and cut the
first installmnt of bread and butter.
Something to Eat.
Then they all sat down to clear broth
scraped beef, mealy baked potatoes
erward / gave them a rice pudding
with prune whip, which, to my sur
prise, every baby liked, though several
mothers had warned me that their