THE Hte'SFERIAN
i
The Fun We Used to Have.
I.
A dozen merry school girls, their little
pig-tails flying, skipped around in a circle,
singing lustily:
"Water, water, white-flower
Growing up so high,
We are all young ladies
Expecting short to die.
Excepting Lily Mason,
She is the finest flower
Fine flower, fine, fine's she.
Turn your back and tell your beau's name."
They stopped. The little girl in the cen
ter hung her head for a moment; she was
thinking, perhaps. Then she caught Rosa
by the neck, and whispered something in
her ear. Lily's bright face turned scarlet.
Her chubby fingers crept to her mouth.
Again the children joined their hands and
sang, as only children can:
"Charlie Chester's a nice young man,
Ho comes to the door with his hat in his hand.
Down comes she all dressed in white,
A rose in her bosom as white as snow.
She pulls off her glove to show me a ring,
Tomorrow, tomorrow the wedding will begin.
Lily, Lily, don't you cry,
Charlie will marry you bye and bye!"
Clap, clap, clap, twonty little hands
danced like fairies round Lily's blushing
head.
"0-h girls, girls, there's Charlie, he's
peeking round the corner," cried Rosa.
"Lily, there's Charlie," said Madge,
sighing with tragic air.
"I don't care, I don't like him. He
ain't neither."
"Nobody said you did, smarry. 1 know
something you don't know anyway.
"The boll, the boll" and away they ran,
those little women.
II.
Mary liked "old witch" because there
was a story to it. "What was the use of
running to the road and then running back
again for a "black man" who never tried to
cctch you? If you were one of the "big
children, it -would bo different. But Mury
was "little folks."
You have to be "little folks" to appre
ciate "old witch." There have to be a
great many children for the "hired girl" to
watch, and the "witch" to steal and the
"mother" to bemoan.
The last was the part that fascinated Mary.
She would have liked to be the "mother,"
herself, if she had dared to suggest such a
thing. How she could have shaken the
careless "hired girl" and then wrung her
hands in the empty kitchen by the stones
where the "kettle" liad "boiled over."
When she stood there in the long row of
"children" she forgot everything in the
troublesome world even the dishes she
must wash when she went home those hor
rible dishes the plague of her seven small
years.
She watchad the "old witch" peep from
her "house" in the weeds to see if the
"mother" had gone to make garden. She
waited, breathless, while the "hired girl"
resolutely held the bar before the door.
The certainty of the final entrance of the
"witch," never spoiled her interest in the
parley. There was always the delicious un
certainty, and the beautiful horror when the
"hired girl" had gone down into the far
collar, and left the "children," a helpless
line against the wall. And then, the greedy
eyes of the "old witch" crouching by the
kettle, making her quick, sure spring, and
dragging who could toll which "child?"
away. That was the horrible thing.
III.
' 'It may bo fun for you but its death for us."
"Well might the frogs back in tho shallow
pasture creek croak this single mournful
song.
It was not exuctly a game that the children
played but tho six cousins were ferocious
cannibals. "With a big tea-strainer, Howard
scooped tho water, and caught many an un
lucky frog. Erdie pounded each poor fellow
on the head, and dropped him lifeless into
old coffee-pot. Jirnmio cut off the legs,
skinned thorn, and laid tho soft white things
0n a mat of c orn loaves.