In the olden days of France it was the custom for a Christian to give a Jew an Easter box.
Tableau.—Two boys, one representing the Christian; the other, the Jew. The Christian must be in the act of boxing the Jew’s ear.
Follow this with the France of to-day.
Tableau.—An interior of a church, extravagantly trimmed with flowers, and brilliant with lighted candles. It should be crowded with boys and girls, mothers and fathers, all in brand-new clothes.
Show Spain as a dark-haired girl, with a mantilla over her head, kneeling in a church before a mammoth candle—the Paschal candle, nine feet long. In order to make it seem taller, stand it on a marble pedestal.
Rome, with a procession of gayly attired children, and a boy representing the Pope, in the most elegant of robes, carried in a crimson chair, over which is a canopy. This chair must be preceded by two boys, each carrying white ostrich-feather fans.
Germany, with a group of dancing girls and boys, the girls wearing small, close-fitting white caps, full white aprons over dark gold-braided skirts and white sleeves; the boys with knee-breeches, white stockings, showy vests and gold buttons. Or show a hare running from a nest filled with colored eggs, before which two little children kneel. The nest should be placed under a bush, and one of the children should wear a laughing face, for she holds up an egg.
England, with a crowd of boys and girls returning from Hampton Court, Kew Gardens, or Stoke Pogis with their arms literally filled with willow-boughs and branches of blossoms—yellow, pink, and white—with which they will decorate the church for Easter Sunday.
Switzerland, with a band of musicians carrying guitars, and going from house to house singing some sweet carol, their hats and caps wreathed with flowers.
A very pretty way to amuse children of all ages is to hide eggs in the grass or under bushes, and then have an egg-hunt. All eggs found may, of course, be carried home. Give five minutes for the hunt, and it will prove great sport for lookers-on also.