Meantime our male teacher stands there, with his hands in his pockets, waiting to see what is to be done with him. Well, his pockets are the best place for his hands when he is keeping a girls' school; and with this advice I leave him, until he is sixty or so, when, if he chooses to open a girls' school, I promise him at least, that he will not go to sleep during the services.
Now let no conservative accuse me of upholding school rebellion. It is because I do not do this that I express my preference for women teachers, both principals and assistants, for girls; having an understanding of, and impervious to, girl witcheries, whom the little rogues know, having been girls themselves, can see through them, and for whom pretty looks or dresses will never answer instead of well-digested lessons.
A Safe Amusement.—All children are fond of animal pets, but it is so difficult to manage such pets in a city that no family can indulge its children's tastes in that respect to any great extent. No one can have watched the children in the Central Park, as they gaze at and linger over the bears and tigers and strange birds, without wishing that the little zoologists had a wider field and better opportunities for pursuing the study of natural history. There ought to be a permanent collection of animals and birds in New York, in some good situation, where children and young people could have ample opportunity, under proper restrictions, to indulge their natural taste for natural history. Every hour thus employed would be a safeguard against the myriad temptations to vice and idleness which pervade the city.
MY CALL ON "DEXTER."
The other evening I went up to Fifty-sixth street to see the new stable. Mr. Bonner was out, but his horses were not. Now I didn't go to see them do their 2.40's, but to gaze at them artistically; and, of course, I wanted them to stand long enough for me to do it, which I believe is not their normal condition. I had a fancy, too, for inspecting them through the bars of their respective doors; for, you see, my nerves had been thrown a little out of gear by a huge blood-hound, that made for me as I was entering the stable-yard, but who, in consideration of my being a Ledger contributor, let me off easy in my boots.
Well, the first thing that struck my New England bred eyes was the perfect neatness and polish and beauty, of every inch of floor and ceiling in that stable. A place for everything, and everything in its place, and Mrs. Bonner nothing to do with it either! Shining harness, shining vehicles, big wheels and small seats, and nothing to hold on to—but the natty reins; a perfectly awful reflection to me, but then Mr. Bonner's arm is an arm! On the wall was something the size of a full moon; red, with a fanciful oak frame. It looked like a huge pincushion, and sure enough it was. Stuck full of wooden pins, to fasten the blankets of those horses round their wicked, strong necks. If it hadn't been for that blood-hound, which I heard sniffing round after me from the outside, I should have inspected it more carefully; but it was fastened to the wall near the door, and—well, I thought I'd pass on to see Dexter. My dear! your new seal-skin sack isn't softer, browner, nor more lovely than that creature's skin. And as to his tail, your latest "switch" is nothing to it! Mr. Bonner not being present to Rarey-fy him, he kicked out his hind leg at me in a very suggestive manner; so, with an Oh, gracious! I requested to have his door closed, for there was a glitter in his eye which was not at all Scriptural. Besides, I once flew through Harlem Lane behind him, and didn't get the color back into my lips for a week after. To compose myself I passed on to Lantern, the Grandpa of the stable, though I have known Grandparents rather frisky in my day. He was reposing on his laurels, and turned round his head to me as if to ask, Why don't you? Alas! I have yet to earn them, and unlike him, I have to pin on my own blanket, and comb my own hair, and buy my own shoes; that's why I don't, old Lantern.