What He Got Out of It

BY S. E. KISER.

(From the Chicago Record-Herald.)

He never took a day of rest, He couldn't afford it; He never had his trousers pressed, He couldn't afford it; He never went away, care-free, To visit distant lands, to see How fair a place this world might be— He couldn't afford it.

He never went to see a play, He couldn't afford it; His love for art he put away, He couldn't afford it. He died and left his heirs a lot, But no tall shaft proclaims the spot In which he lies—his children thought They couldn't afford it.

The Play's the Thing [B]

BY GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN.

(Arranged by Maude Herndon and Grace Kellam.)

t was the day of the exhibition. Miss Carrie, teacher of the Third Reader Class, talked in deep tones—gestures meant sweeps and circles. Since the coming of Miss Carrie, the Third Reader Class lived, as it were, in the public eye, for on Fridays books were put away and the attention given to recitations and company. No other class had these recitations, and the Third Reader was envied. Its members were pointed out and gazed upon, until one realized one was standing in the garish light of fame. The other readers, it seemed, longed for fame and craved publicity, and so it came about that the school was to have an exhibition with Miss Carrie's genius to plan and engineer the whole. For general material Miss Carrie drew from the whole school, but the play was for her own class alone.

And this was the day of the exhibition.

Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou stood at the gate of the school. They had spent the morning in rehearsing. At noon they had been sent home with instructions to return at half-past two. The exhibition would begin at three.

"Of course," Miss Carrie had said, "you will not fail to be on time." And Miss Carrie had used her deepest tones.

It was not two o'clock, and the three stood at the gate, the first to return. They were in the same piece. It was "The Play." In a play one did more than suit the part.

In the play Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou found themselves the orphaned children of a soldier who had failed to return from the war. It was a very sad piece. Sadie had to weep, and more than once Emmy Lou had found tears in her eyes, watching her.

Miss Carrie said Sadie showed histrionic talent. Emmy Lou asked Hattie about it, who said it meant tears, and Emmy Lou remembered then how tears came naturally to Sadie.

When Aunt Cordelia heard they must dress to suit the part she came to see Miss Carrie, and so did the mamma of Sadie and the mamma of Hattie.

"Dress them in a kind of mild mourning," Miss Carrie explained, "not too deep, or it will seem too real, and, as three little sisters, suppose we dress them alike."

And now Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou stood at the gate ready for the play. Stiffly immaculate white dresses with beltings of black sashes, flared jauntily out above spotless white stockings and sober little slippers, while black-bound Leghorn hats shaded three anxious little countenances. By the exact center, each held a little handkerchief, black-bordered.

Hattie and Sadie and Emmy Lou wore each an anxious seriousness of countenance, but it was a variant seriousness; for as the hour approached, the solemn importance of the occasion was stealing brain-ward, and Emmy Lou even began to feel glad she was a part of The Exhibition, for to have been left out would have been worse even than the moment of mounting the platform.

"My grown-up brother's coming," said Hattie, "an' my mamma an' gran'ma an' the rest."

"My Aunt Cordelia has invited the visiting lady next door," said Emmy Lou.

But it was Sadie's hour. "Our minister's coming," said Sadie.

Emmy Lou's part was to weep when Sadie wept, and to point a chubby forefinger skyward when Hattie mentioned the departure from earth of the soldier parent, and to lower that forefinger footward at Sadie's tearful allusion to an untimely grave.

Emmy Lou had but one utterance, and it was brief. She was to advance one foot, stretch forth a hand and say, in the character of orphan for whom no asylum was offered, "We know not where we go." All day, Emmy Lou had been saying it at intervals of half minutes, for fear she might forget.

Meanwhile, it yet lacking a moment or so of two o'clock, the orphaned heroes continued to linger at the gate, awaiting the hour.

"Listen," said Hattie, "I hear music."

There was a church across the street. It was a large church with high steps and a pillared portico, and its doors were open.

"It's a band, and marching," said Hattie.

The orphaned children hurried to the curb. A procession was turning the corner and coming toward them. On either sidewalk crowds of men and boys accompanied it.

"It's a funeral," said Sadie.

Hattie turned with a face of conviction. "I know. It's that big general's funeral; they're bringing him home to bury him with the soldiers."

"We'll never see a thing for the crowd," despaired Sadie.

Emmy Lou was gazing. "They've got plumes in their hats," she said.

"Let's go over on the church steps and see it go by," said Hattie, "it's early."

The orphaned children hurried across the street. They climbed the steps. At the top they turned. There were plumes and more, there were flags and swords, and a band led. But at the church, with unexpected abruptness, the band halted, turned; it fell apart, and the procession came through; it came right on through and up the steps, a line of uniforms and swords on either side from curb to pillar, and halted.

Aghast, between two glittering files, the orphaned children shrank into the shadow behind a pillar, while upstreamed from the carriages below an unending line—bare-headed men and ladies bearing flowers. Behind, below, about, closing in on every side, crowded people, a sea of people.

The orphaned children found themselves swept from their hiding by the crowd and unwillingly jostled forward into prominence.

A frowning man, with a sword in his hand, seemed to be threatening everybody; his face was red and his voice was big, and he glittered with many buttons. All at once he caught sight of the orphaned children and threatened them vehemently.

"Here," said the frowning man, "right in here," and he placed them in line. The orphaned children were appalled, and even in the face of the man cried out in protest. But the man of the sword did not hear, for the reason that he did not listen. Instead he was addressing a large and stout lady immediately behind them.

"Separated from the family in the confusion, the grandchildren evidently—just see them in, please."

And suddenly the orphaned children found themselves a part

of the procession as grandchildren. The nature of a procession is to proceed. And the grandchildren proceeded with it. They could not help themselves. There was no time for protest, for, pushed by the crowd, which closed and swayed above their heads, and piloted by the stout lady close behind, they were swept into the church and up the aisle, and when they came again to themselves were in the inner corner of a pew near the front.

The church was decked with flags. So was the Third Reader room. It was hung with flags for The Exhibition.

Hattie in the corner nudged Sadie. Sadie urged Emmy Lou, who, next to the stout lady, touched her timidly. "We have to get out; we've got to say our parts."

"Not now," said the lady, reassuringly; "the program is at the cemetery."

Emmy Lou did not understand, and she tried to tell the lady.

"S-h-," said the person, engaged with the spectacle and the crowd; "sh-h-" Abashed, Emmy Lou sat, sh-h-ed.

Hattie arose. It was terrible to rise in church, and at a funeral, and the church was filled, the aisles were crowded, but Hattie rose. Hattie was a St. George, and a Dragon stood between her and The Exhibition. She pushed by Sadie, and past Emmy Lou. Hattie was slim as she was strenuous, but not even so slim a little girl as Hattie could push by the stout lady, for she filled the space.

At Hattie's touch she turned. Although she looked good-natured, the size and ponderance of the lady were intimidating. She stared at Hattie; people were looking; it was in church; Hattie's face was red.

"You can't get to the family," said the lady; "you couldn't move in the crowd. Besides I promised to see to you. Now be quiet," she added crossly, when Hattie would have spoken. She turned away. Hattie crept back vanquished by this Dragon.

"So suitably dressed," the stout lady was saying to a lady beyond; "grandchildren, you know. Even their little handkerchiefs have black borders." The service began, and there fell on the unwilling grandchildren the submission of awe. The stout lady cried, she also punched Emmy Lou with her elbow whenever that little person moved, but finally she found courage to turn her head so she could see Sadie. Sadie was weeping into her black-bordered handkerchief, nor were

they tears of histrionic talent. They were real tears. People all about were looking at her sympathetically. Such grief in a grandchild was very moving. It may have been minutes; it seemed to Emmy Lou hours, before there came a general uprising. Hattie stood up. So did Sadie and Emmy Lou. Their skirts no longer stood out jauntily; they were quite crushed and subdued. There was a wild, hunted look in Hattie's eyes. "Watch the chance!" she whispered, "and run."

But it did not come. As the pews emptied, the stout lady passed Emmy Lou on, addressing some one beyond. "Hold to this one," she said, "and I'll take the other two, or they'll get tramped in the crowd."

Slowly the crowd moved, and being a part of it, however unwillingly, Emmy Lou moved, too, out of the church and down the steps. Then came the crashing of the band and the roll of the carriages, and she found herself in the front row on the curb.

The man with the brandishing sword was threatening violently. "One more carriage is here for the family," called the man with the sword. His glance in search for the family suddenly fell on Emmy Lou. She felt it fall.

The problem solved itself for the man with the sword, and his brow cleared.

"Grandchildren next," roared the threatening man. "Keep an eye on them—separated from the family," he was explaining, and in spite of their protests, a moment later the three little girls were lifted into the carriage, and as the door banged, their carriage moved with the rest up the street.

"Now," said Hattie, and Hattie sprang to the farther door. It would not open. Through the carriage windows the school, with its arched doorways and windows, gazed frowningly, reproachfully. A gentleman entered the gate and went in the doorway.

"It's our minister," said Sadie, weeping afresh. Then Hattie wept and so did Emmy Lou. What would The Exhibition do without them?

Late that afternoon a carriage stopped at a corner upon which a school building stood. Since his charges were infantile affairs, the colored gentleman on the box thought to expedite matters and drop them at the corner nearest their homes. Descending, he flung open the door, and three little girls crept forth, three crushed little girls, three limp little

girls, three little girls in a mild kind of mourning. They came forth timidly. They looked around. They hoped they might reach their homes unobserved.

There was a crowd up the street. A gathering of people—many people. It seemed to be at Emmy Lou's gate. Hattie and Sadie lived farther on.

"It must be a fire," said Hattie.

But it wasn't. It was The Exhibition, the Principal, and Miss Carrie, and teachers and pupils, and mammas and aunties and Uncle Charlie.

"An' grand'ma," said Hattie. "And the visiting lady," said Emmy Lou. "And our minister," said Sadie.

The gathering of many people caught sight of them presently, and came to meet them, three little girls in mild mourning.

The parents and guardians led them home.

Emmy Lou was tired. At supper she nodded and mild mourning and all, suddenly she collapsed and fell asleep, her head against her chair.

Uncle Charlie woke her. He stood her up on the chair, and held out his arms. "Come," he said, "Come, suit the action to the word."

Emmy Lou woke suddenly, the words smiting her ears with ominous import. She thought the hour had come; it was The Exhibition. She stood stiffly, she advanced a cautious foot, her chubby hand described a careful half circle. Emmy Lou spoke her part.

"We know not where we go."

[B]

The Dancing School and Dicky [C]

BY JOSEPHINE DODGE DASKAM.

(Arranged by Maude Herndon and Grace Kellam.)

[From "The Little God and Dicky.">[

[We have debated long and earnestly which of the seven stories in "The Madness of Phillip and Other Tales of Childhood" is the best public reading. As yet we have no decision; certainly six of them are among the choicest readings of child-life which may be found in American literature, where we have the real child in books. With the permission of the author and the publishers, McClure, Phillips & Co., New York, we reprint cuttings from two of these stories.]

here are you going?" said somebody, as he slunk out toward the hat-rack.

"Oh, out."

"Well, see that you don't stay long. Remember what it is this afternoon."

He turned like a stag at bay.

"What is it this afternoon?" he demanded viciously.

"You know very well."

"What?"

"See that you're here, that's all. You've got to get dressed."

"I will not go to that old dancing school again, and I tell you that I won't, and I won't. And I won't!"

"Now, Dick, don't begin that all over again. It's so silly of you. You've got to go."

"Why?"

"Because it's the thing to do."

"Why?"

"Because you must learn to dance."

"Why?"

"Every nice boy learns."

"Why?"

"That will do, Richard. Go and find your pumps. Now, get right up from the floor, and if you scratch the Morris chair I shall speak to your father. Ain't you ashamed of yourself? Get right up—you must expect to be hurt, if you pull so. Come, Richard! Now, stop crying—a great boy like you! I am sorry I hurt your elbow, but you know very well you aren't crying for that at all. Come along!"

His sister flitted by the door, her accordeon-plaited skirt held carefully from the floor, her hair in two glistening, blue-knotted pigtails.

"Hurry up, Dick, or we'll be late," she called back sweetly.

"Oh, you shut up, will you!" he snarled.

She looked meek, and listened to his deprivation of dessert for the rest of the week with an air of love for the sinner and hatred for the sin that deceived even her older sister who was dressing her.

A desperately patient monologue from the next room indicated the course of events there.

"Your necktie is on the bed. No, I don't know where the blue one is—it doesn't matter; that it just as good. Yes, it is. No, you cannot. You will have to wear one. Because no one ever goes without. I don't know why.

"Many a boy would be thankful and glad to have silk stockings. Nonsense, your legs are warm enough. I don't believe you. Now, Richard, how perfectly ridiculous! There is no left or right to stockings. You have no time to change. Shoes are a different thing. Well, hurry up, then. Because they are made so, I suppose. I don't know why.

"Brush it more on that side—no, you can't go to the barbers. You went last week. It looks perfectly well. I cut it? Why, I don't know how to trim hair. Anyway, there isn't time now. It will have to do. Stop your scowling for goodness' sake, Dick. Have you a handkerchief? It makes no difference, you must carry one. You ought to want to use it. Well, you should. Yes, they always do, whether they have colds or not. I don't know why.

"Your Golden Text! The idea! No, you cannot. You can learn that Sunday before church. This is not the time to learn Golden Texts. I never saw such a child. Now take your pumps and find the plush bag. Why not? Put them

right with Ruth's. That's what the bag was made for. Well, how do you want to carry them? Why, I never heard of anything so silly! You will knot the strings. I don't care if they do carry skates that way—skates are not slippers. You'd lose them. Very well, then, only hurry up. I should think you'd be ashamed to have them dangling around your neck that way. Because people never do carry them so. I don't know why.

"Now, here's your coat. Well, I can't help it, you have no time to hunt for them. Put your hands in your pockets—it's not far. And mind, don't run for Ruth every time. You don't take any pains with her, and you hustle her about, Miss Dorothy says. Take another little girl. Yes, you must. I shall speak to your father if you answer me in that way, Richard. Men don't dance with their sisters. Because they don't. I don't know why."

He slammed the door till the piazza shook, and strode along beside his scandalized sister, the pumps flopping noisily on his shoulders. She tripped along contentedly—she liked to go. The personality capable of extracting pleasure from the hour before them baffled his comprehension, and he scowled fiercely at her, rubbing his silk stockings together at every step, to enjoy the strange smooth sensation thus produced. This gave him a bow-legged gait that distressed his sister beyond words.

"I think you might stop. Everybody's looking at you! Please stop, Dick Pendleton; you're a mean old thing. I should think you'd be ashamed to carry your slippers that way. If you jump in that wet place and spatter me I shall tell papa—you will care, when I tell him just the same! You're just as bad as you can be. I shan't speak with you to-day!"

She pursed up her lips and maintained a determined silence. He rubbed his legs together with renewed emphasis. Acquaintances met them and passed, unconscious of anything but the sweet picture of a sister and a brother and a plush bag going dutifully and daintily to dancing school.

He jumped over the threshold of the long room and aimed his cap at the head of a boy he knew, who was standing on one foot to put on a slipper. This destroyed his friend's balance, and a cheerful scuffle followed. Life assumed a more hopeful aspect.

A shrill whistle called them out in two crowded bunches to the polished floor.

Hoping against hope, he had clung to the beautiful thought that Miss Dorothy would be sick, that she had missed her train—but no! There she was, with her shiny high-heeled slippers, her pink skirt that puffed out like a fan, and her silver whistle on a chain. The little clicking castanets that rang out so sharply were in her hand beyond a doubt.

"Ready, children! Spread out. Take your lines. First position. Now!"

The large man at the piano, who always looked half asleep, thundered out the first bars of the latest waltz, and the business began.

Their eyes were fixed solemnly on Miss Dorothy's pointed shoes. They slipped and slid and crossed their legs and arched their pudgy insteps; the boys breathed hard over their gleaming collars. On the right side of the hall thirty hands held out their diminutive skirts at an alluring angle. On the left, neat black legs pattered diligently through mystic evolutions.

The chords rolled out slower, with dramatic pauses between; sharp clicks of the castanets rang through the hall; a line of toes rose gradually towards the horizontal, whirled more or less steadily about, crossed behind, bent low, bowed, and with a flutter of skirts resumed the first position.

A little breeze of laughing admiration circled the row of mothers and aunts.

"Isn't that too cunning! Just like a little ballet! Aren't they graceful, really, now!"

"One, two, three! One, two three! Slide, slide, cross; one, two, three!"

There are those who find pleasure in the aimless intricacies of the dance; self-respecting men even have been known voluntarily to frequent assemblies devoted to this nerve-racking attitudinizing futility. Among such, however, you shall seek in vain in future years for Richard Carr Pendleton.

"One, two, three! Reverse, two, three!"

The whistle shrilled.

"Ready for the two-step, children?"

A mild tolerance grew on him. If dancing must be, better

the two-step than anything else. It is not an alluring dance, your two-step; it does not require temperament. Any one with a firm intention of keeping the time and a strong arm can drag a girl through it very acceptably.

Dicky skirted the row of mothers and aunts cautiously.

"Oh, look! Did you ever see anything so sweet?" said somebody. Involuntarily he turned. There in a corner, all by herself, a little girl was gravely performing a dance. He stared at her curiously.

She was ethereally slender, brown-eyed, brown-haired, brown-skinned. A little fluffy white dress spread fan-shaped over her knees; her ankles were bird-like. Her eyes were serious, her hair hung loose. She swayed lightly; one little gloved hand held out her skirt, the other marked the time. Her performance was an apotheosis of the two-step; that metronomic dance would not have recognized itself under her treatment.

Dicky admired. But the admiration of his sex is notoriously fatal to the art that attracts it. He advanced and bowed jerkily, grasped one of the loops of her sash in the back, stamped gently a moment to get the time, and the artist sank into the partner, the pirouette grew coarse to sympathize with clay.

"Don't they do it well, though! See those little things near the door!" he caught as they went by, and his heart swelled with pride.

"What's your name?" he asked abruptly after the dance.

"Thithelia," she lisped. She was very shy.

"Mine's Richard Carr Pendleton. My father's a lawyer. What's yours?"

"I—I don't know!"

"Pooh!" he said, grandly; "I guess you know. Don't you, really?"

She shook her head. Suddenly a light dawned in her eyes.

"Maybe I know," she murmured. "I gueth I know. He—he'th a really thtate!"

"A really state? That isn't anything—nothing at all. A really state?" He frowned at her. Her lip quivered. She turned and ran away.

"Here, come back!" he called; but she was gone.

"That will do for to-day," said Miss Dorothy, presently, and they surged into the dressing-rooms, to be buttoned up and pulled out of draughts and trundled home.

She was swathed carefully in a wadded silk jacket, and then enveloped in a hooded cloak; she looked like an angelic brownie. Dicky ran to her as a woman led her out to a coupé at the curb, and tugged at the ribbon of her cloak.

"Where do you live? Say, where do you?" he demanded.

"I—I don't know." The woman laughed.

"Why, yes, you do, Cissy. Tell him directly, now."

She put one tiny finger in her mouth.

"I—I gueth I live on Chethnut Thtreet," he called as the door slammed and shut her in.

His sister amicably offered him half the plush bag to carry, and opened a running criticism of the afternoon.

"Did you ever see anybody act like that Fannie Leach? She's awfully rough. Miss Dorothy spoke to her twice—wasn't that dreadful? What made you dance all the time with Cissy Weston? She's an awful baby—a regular fraid-cat! We girls tease her just as easy—do you like her?"

"She's the prettiest one there!"

"Why, Dick Pendleton, she is not! She's so little—she's not half so pretty as Agnes, or—or lots of the girls. She's such a baby. She puts her finger in her mouth if anybody says anything at all. If you ask her a single thing she does like this: 'I don't know, I don't know!'"

He smiled scornfully. Did he not know how she did it?

"And she can't talk plain! She lisps—truly she does!"

Was ever a girl so thick-headed as that sister of his!

"She puts her finger in her mouth! She can't talk plain!" Alas, my sisters, it was Helen's finger that toppled over Troy, and Diane de Poitiers stammered!

For two long months the little girl led him along the primrose way. The poor fellow thought it was the main road; he had yet to learn it was but a by-path. But the Little God was not through with him. That very night he reached the top of the wave.

He came down to breakfast rapt and quiet. He salted his oatmeal by mistake, and never knew the difference. His sister laughed derisively, and explained his folly to him as he swallowed the last spoonful, but he only smiled kindly at her. After his egg he spoke.

"I dreamed that it was dancing school. And I went. And I was the only fellow there. And what do you think? All the little girls were Cecilia!"

They gasped.

"You don't suppose he'll be a poet, do you? Or a genius, or anything?" his mother inquired anxiously.

"No!" his father returned. "I should say he was more likely to be a Mormon!"

[C]

"A Model Story in the Kindergarten"[D]

BY JOSEPHINE DODGE DASKAM.

(Arranged by Maude Herndon and Grace Kellam.)

[From "The Madness of Philip." McClure, Phillips & Company.]

t was evident that something was wrong that morning with the children of the kindergarten. Two perplexed teachers were quieting the latest outbreak and marshaling a wavering line of very little people when the youngest assistant appeared on the scene.

"Miss Hunt wants to know why you're so late with them," she inquired. "She hopes nothing's wrong. Mr. R. B. M. Smith is here to-day to visit the primary schools and kindergartens, and—"

"Oh, goodness," exclaimed a teacher, abruptly, ceasing her attempted consolation of Marantha Judd. "I can't bear that woman! She's always read Stanley Hall's last article that proves that what he said before was wrong! Come along, Marantha, don't be a foolish little girl any longer. We shall be late for the morning exercise."

Upstairs a large circle was forming under the critical scrutiny of a short, stout woman with crinkly, gray hair. This was Mr. R. B. M. Smith, who, when the opening exercises were finished, signified her willingness to relate to the children a model story, calling the teacher's attention in advance to the almost incredible certainty that would characterize the children's anticipation of the events judiciously and psychologically selected.

The arm-chairs shortly to contain so much accurate anticipation were at last arranged and the children sat decorously attentive, their faces turned curiously toward the strange lady with the fascinating plumes in her bonnet.

"Nothing like animals to bring out the protective instinct—feebler dependent on the stronger," she said rapidly to the teachers, and then addressed the objects of these theories.

"Now, children, I'm going to tell you a nice story—you all like stories, I'm sure."

At just this moment little Richard Willetts sneezed loudly and unexpectedly to all, himself included, with the result that his ever-ready suspicion fixed upon his neighbor, Andrew Halloran, as the direct cause of the convulsion. Andrew's well-meant efforts to detach from Richard's vest the pocket-handkerchief securely fastened thereto by a large black safety-pin strengthened the latter's conviction of intended assault and battery, and he squirmed out of the circle and made a dash for the hall—the first stage in an evident homeward expedition.

This broke in upon the story, and even when it got under way again there was an atmosphere of excitement quite unexplained by the tale itself.

"Yesterday, children, as I came out of my yard, what do you think I saw?" The elaborately concealed surprise in store was so obvious that Marantha rose to the occasion and suggested:

"An el'phunt?"

"Why, no! Why should I see an elephant in my yard? It wasn't nearly so big as that—it was a little thing!"

"A fish?" ventured Eddy Brown, whose eye fell upon the aquarium in the corner. The raconteuse smiled patiently.

"Why, no! How could a fish, a live fish, get in my front yard?"

"A dead fish?" persisted Eddy, who was never known to relinquish voluntarily an idea.

"It was a little kitten," said the story-teller, decidedly. "A little white kitten. She was standing right near a great big puddle of water. And what else do you think I saw?"

"Another kitten?" suggested Marantha, conservatively.

"No, a big Newfoundland dog. He saw the little kitten near the water. Now cats don't like the water, do they? They don't like a wet place. What do they like?"

"Mice," said Joseph Zukoffsky, abruptly.

"Well, yes, they do; but there were no mice in my yard. I'm sure you know what I mean. If they don't like water, what do they like?"

"Milk!"

"They like a dry place," said Mrs. R. B. M. Smith.

"Now what do you suppose the dog did?"

It may be that successive failures had disheartened the listeners; it may be that the very range presented alive to the dog and them for choice dazzled their imaginations. At any rate, they made no answer.

"Nobody knows what the dog did?" repeated the story-teller, encouragingly. "What would you do if you saw a little white kitten like that?"

Again a silence. Then Philip remarked gloomily, "I'd pull its tail."

"And what do the rest of you think?" inquired Mrs. R. B. M. Smith, pathetically. "I hope you are not so cruel as that little boy."

But fully half the children had seen the youngest assistant giggle at "that little boy's" answer, and with one accord came the quick response, "I'd pull it too."

[D]