The Girl and the Kingdom | Page 7

'em 'tis and I'll see't he remembers this day as long as he lives. Your hair's all mussed up and you look sick abed!"
She led me to the sofa where we put tired babies to sleep, and covered me with my coat. Then she stole out and came back with a pitcher of hot, well-boiled tea, after which she tidied the room and made everything right for next day. Dear Old Corporal!
The improvement in these "little teachers" in capacity as well as in manner, voice, speech and behavior, was almost supernatural, and it was only less obvious in the rank and file. There was little "scrubbing" done on the premises now, for nearly all the mothers who were not invalids, intemperate, or incurable slatterns, were heartily in sympathy with our ideals. At the end of six weeks when various members of the Board of Trustees began to drop in for their second visit they were almost frightened by our attractive appearance.
"The subscribers will think the children come from Nob Hill," one of them exclaimed in humorous alarm. "Are you sure you took the most needy in every way?"
"Quite sure. Sit down in my chair, please, and look at my private book. Do you see in the first place that thirteen are the children of small liquor sellers and live back of the saloons? Then note that ten are the children of widows who support large families by washing, cleaning, machine sewing or shop-keeping. You will see that one mother and three fathers on our list are temporarily in jail serving short terms. We may never have quite such a picturesque class again, and perhaps it would not be advisable; I wish sometimes that I had taken humanity as it ran, good, bad and indifferent, instead of choosing children from the most discouraging homes. I thought, of course, that they were going to be little villains. They ought to be, if there is anything either in heredity or environment, but just look at them at this moment--a favorable moment, I grant you--but just look at them! Forty pretty-near-angels, that's what they are!"
"It is marvellous! I could adopt twenty of them! I cannot account for it," said another of the Trustees.
"I can," I answered. "Any tolerably healthy child under six who is clean, busy, happy and in good company looks as these do. Why should they not be attractive? They live for four hours a day in this sunny, airy room; they do charming work suited to their baby capacities--work, too, which is not all pure routine, but in a simple way creative, so that they are not only occupied, but they are expressing themselves as creative beings should. They have music, stories and games, and although they are obliged to behave themselves (which is sometimes a trifle irksome) they never hear an unkind word. They grow in grace, partly because they return as many of these favors as is possible at their age. They water the plants, clean the bird's cage and fill the seed cups and bath; they keep the room as tidy as possible to make the janitor's work easier; they brush up the floor after their own muddy feet; the older ones help the younger and the strong look after the weak. The conditions are almost ideal; why should they not respond to them?"
California children are apt to be good specimens. They suffer no extremes of heat or cold; food is varied and fruit plentiful and cheap; they are out of doors every month in the year and they are more than ordinarily clever and lively. Still I refuse to believe that any other company of children in California, or in the universe, was ever so unusual or so piquantly interesting as those of the Silver Street Kindergarten, particularly the never-to-be-forgotten "first forty."
As I look back across the lapse of time I cannot understand how any creature, however young, strong or ardent, could have supported the fatigue and strain of that first year! No one was to blame, for the experiment met with appreciation almost immediately, but I was attempting the impossible, and trying to perform the labor of three women. I soon learned to work more skillfully, but I habitually squandered my powers and lavished on trivial details strength that should have been spent more thriftily. The difficulties of each day could be surmounted only by quick wit, ingenuity, versatility; by the sternest exercise of self-control and by a continual outpour of magnetism. My enthusiasm made me reckless, but though I regret that I worked in entire disregard of all laws of health, I do not regret a single hour of exhaustion, discouragement or despair. All my pains were just so many birth-pangs, leaving behind them a little more knowledge of human nature, a little wider vision,