One of the most attractive places for out-door amusement, just outside of Paris, is a spot fitted out to be a counterpart of the Island of Juan Fernandez, described by Daniel de Foe in his story of Robinson Crusoe.
After leaving the railroad depot, you enter an omnibus on which are painted the words "Robinson Crusoe." This leaves you at an arch-way bearing the curious inscription: "A mimic island of Juan Fernandez, the abode of Robinson Crusoe, dear to the heart of childhood, and a reminder of our days of innocence." You pass under this with high hope, and are not disappointed.
Inside, you find a kind of gypsy camp. Groups of open "summer-houses," built of bark, unhewn wood, and moss, are clustered here and there. Some stand on the earth, others are in grottoes or by shady rocks, and some are even among the branches of the great trees. All these houses are meant for resting-places while you are being served with such delicacies as pleasure-seekers from Paris are wont to require. In each of those huts, which are in the trees, stands a waiter who draws up the luncheon, the creams, or ices, in a kind of bucket, which has been filled by another waiter below. All is done deftly and silently, and you are as little disturbed as was Elijah by the ravens who waited on him.
The trees in which these houses are built are large old forest-trees, each strong enough in the fork to hold safely the foundation of a small cottage; and the winding stairs by which you get up into the tree are hidden by a leafy drapery of ivy, which covers the trunk also, and hangs in fluttering festoons from limb to limb.
From one of these comfortable perches you look down upon a lively scene of foliage, flowers, greensward, gay costumes and frolicking children. The view is wide, and has many features that would be strange to "dear old Robinson Crusoe." His cabin is multiplied into a hamlet, and his hermit life is gone. But you still recognize the place as a modernized portrait of the island of De Foe's wonderful book. And, as if to furnish you with a fresh piece of evidence, yonder appears Robinson Crusoe himself, in his coat of skins, and bearing his musket and huge umbrella.
Instead of Man Friday, Will Atkins, and the rest, you see donkeys carrying laughing children and led by queer-looking old women. And you heave a little sigh when you think: "How few of these French boys and girls really know old Crusoe and his adventures! To them this charming place has nothing whatever to do with running away to sea, shipwrecks, cannibals, mutinies, and such things. It is nothing but a new kind of pleasure-ground to them."
However, everybody feels at home here, and so everybody is happy; for, after all, looking for happiness is much like the old woman's search for her spectacles, which all the time are just above her nose.
O dear delightful island, how glad we were to chance upon you right here in gay, care-free Paris! And what an enchanted day we spent amid your thousand delights and thronging memories!
C. V. N. C. U.
Here are two welcome little letters received some time ago from a boy and girl in Europe: