[14. INDIAN BOYS AND GIRLS.]
1. I am very fond of going about the streets with your uncle. The Indian children always amuse me.
2. When Indians grow up they are rather grave and sad. The children, however, are always bright and merry. Indian fathers and mothers are very fond of their boys. They care very little for their girls.
3. Boys soon become men in India. They begin work at an early age, and they are married when they are about sixteen. Girls are married a few years younger.
4. Almost every boy follows the trade of his father. A farmer's son becomes a farmer, a weaver's son becomes a weaver, and so on.
5. Many of the boys go to school, but not many of the girls. They, poor things, begin to work in the house or in the field almost as soon as they can walk. Much of the hard rough work in India is done by poor women and girls.
6. A rich father keeps his girls shut up in the back part of his house. Their faces are never seen by any man except those of their own family. If they go out of the house, they cover themselves from head to foot with a thick veil. Sometimes they are carried from place to place in a closely shut box on poles.
7. Are you not sorry for these poor rich girls? I am. They can never play merry games with boy friends, or go for long walks in the country.