EASTER EGG ROLLING IN WASHINGTON
"Going to Mr. President's!"
That is what the hundreds of little boys and girls will tell you any Easter Monday morning, should you chance to stop them and ask their destination as they go toddling along the streets of Washington with baskets of eggs hanging on their arms and a glad delight shining in their eyes.
They make up a very "mixed" crowd, these children! There is the dainty little miss in richly embroidered frock and wide silk sash, with one tiny hand held tightly in the grasp of a big negro nurse and the other hand clasping lovingly a basket of pretty coloured eggs; there is another little girl in a very clean but much-faded gingham or print apron, trotting along at her mother's side—the mother dressed, perchance, in shabby black, belonging to the class known in the Southern part of the States as the "poor whites"; there is also the trio of little "darkey" girls, dancing merrily along the sidewalk, swinging their egg-baskets as though with intention of spilling the eggs over passers-by, yet never quite dropping them, and singing the while as they keep step—
"Tra la la la, tra la la la,
Easter Monday morning!"
There are nice, smart-looking little boys, strutting along proudly in their first pair of knickerbockers, with pockets bulging out with Easter eggs, their black nurses walking just a few steps behind them; there are the poor white boys whose clothes are patched and boots worn with toes protruding. On other days they sell newspapers, black boots, and do "odd jobbs" to earn a few cents, but on Easter Monday morning they somehow get together a collection of coloured eggs and go to see the President. Then there are the little black boys, some smartly dressed (for many of the coloured people of Washington are well-to-do), and others as shabby as shabby can be. But no matter. Are they not provided with Easter Monday eggs and going up to the White House to see "Mr. President," who every Easter Monday gives over his beautiful lawn to as many little boys and girls as like to go and see him, and roll their eggs over the grassy slopes that look out over the Potomac River?
Lester Ralph.
THE INVASION OF THE PRESIDENT'S LAWN.