“The grown-up people” were the children in Nettie’s story, and the children were the managers of all things at home and at school.
Mrs. Orange went to Mrs. Lemon’s and told her that “her children were getting positively too much for her.” She had two parents, two intimate friends of theirs, one godfather, two godmothers, and an aunt. She wished to send them to school, because they were “getting too much for her.” Many real mothers give the same reason.
“Have you as many as eight vacancies?”
“I have just eight, ma’am,” said Mrs. Lemon.
“Corporal punishment dispensed with?”
“Why, we do occasionally shake,” said Mrs. Lemon, “and we have slapped. But only in extreme cases.”
Mrs. Orange was shown through the school, and had the bad “grown-ups” pointed out to her and their evil propensities explained to her in their hearing, as naturally as in a real school. She decided to send her family, and went home with her baby—which was a doll—saying, “These troublesome troubles are got rid of, please the pigs.”
A small party for the grown-up children was given by Mrs. Alicumpaine, and the arrangements made for the adults, and the ways in which they were treated by their child masters, and the criticisms on the way the seniors behaved are all instructive to thoughtful parents. The real things that adult people say and do appear delightfully stupid or exquisitely silly when made to appear as said and done by children.
When Mr. and Mrs. Orange were going home they passed the establishment of Mrs. Lemon, and necessarily thought of their eight adult pupils who were there.
“I wonder, James, dear,” said Mrs. Orange, looking up at the window, “whether the precious children are asleep!”