A LITTLE CHILD’S PARTY.
Invite both boys and girls for a short frolic. Between three and five o’clock in the afternoon would be excellent hours.
Provide for their entertainment, flowers, birds, worsted and rubber balls, dolls, tea-services, horses, whips, and music. If you have a music-box it will prove very serviceable. The children will be much interested; some of the shorter ones will stand on tiptoe, the better to discover the way the wheels go around.
Two or more grown people should be present; those who understand little children, and have a knack in amusing them.
The toys will greatly aid in getting the children acquainted. Play ball with the boys, throwing it lightly back and forth. Set out the tea-services. Show off the dollies. Put a small boy on a hobby horse, and start the horse on a trot, and after he has his ride, give another boy his turn. After a while play polkas and waltzes, and then
What a merry rout,
See the wee ones dance about!
Change the amusement. Show them flowers, canary birds, butterflies, anything you may have to attract, always remembering the toys and going back to them again and again.
Low chairs and hassocks will make it easier for the little people than to have to climb into the great chairs and sofas used by older folks.
Refreshments should be exceedingly simple, and a souvenir, such as a cornucopia or handful of motto-papers, gayly tinted and full of candy, will be much appreciated.