“See what joyous faces, what shining eyes, and what glad jubilee welcome the story-teller, and what a blooming circle of glad children press around him!”—FROEBEL.
Mrs. Chinchilla was not a lovely lady, with a dress of soft gray cloth and a great chinchilla muff and boa. Not at all. Mrs. Chinchilla was a beautiful cat, with sleek fur like silver-gray satin, and a very handsome tail to match, quite long enough to brush the ground when she walked. She didn't live in a house, but she had a very comfortable home in a fine drug-store, with one large bay-window almost to herself and her kittens. She had three pretty fat dumplings of kittens, all in soft shades of gray like their mother. She didn't like any other color in kittens so well as a quiet ladylike gray. None of her children ever were black, or white, or yellow, but sometimes they had four snow-white socks on their gray paws. Mrs. Chinchilla didn't mind that, for white socks were really a handsome finish to a gray kitten, though, of course, it was a deal of trouble to keep them clean.
At the time my story begins the kits were all tiny catkins, whose eyes had been open only a day or two, so Mrs. Chinchilla had to wash them every morning herself. She had the most wonderful tongue! I'll tell you what that tongue had in it: a hair-brush, a comb, a tooth-brush, a nail-brush, a sponge, a towel, and a cake of soap! And when Mrs. Chinchilla had finished those three little catkins, they were as fresh and sweet, and shiny and clean, and kissable and huggable, as any baby just out of a bath-tub.
One morning, just after the little kits had had their scrub in the sunny bay-window, they felt, all at once, old enough to play; and so they began to scramble over each other, and run about between the great colored glass jars, and even to chase and bite the ends of their own tails. They had not known that they had any tails before that morning, and of course it was a charming surprise. Mrs. Chinchilla looked on lazily and gravely. It had been a good while since she had had time or had felt young and gay enough to chase her tail, but she was very glad to see the kittens enjoy themselves harmlessly.
Now, while this was going on, some one came up to the window and looked in. It was the Boy who lived across the street. Mrs. Chinchilla disliked nearly all boys, but she was afraid of this one. He had golden curls and a Fauntleroy collar, and the sweetest lips that ever said prayers, and clean dimpled hands that looked as if they had been made to stroke cats and make them purr. But instead of stroking them he rubbed their fur the wrong way, and hung tin kettles to their tails, and tied handkerchiefs over their heads. When Mrs. Chinchilla saw the Boy she humped her back, so that it looked like a gray mountain, and said, “Sftt!” three times. When the Boy found that she was looking at him, and lashing her tail, and yawning so as to show him her sharp white teeth, he suddenly disappeared from sight. So Mrs. Chinchilla gave the kittens their breakfast, and they cuddled themselves into a round ball, and went fast asleep. They were first rolled so tightly, and then so tied up with their tails, that you couldn't have told whether they were three or six little catkins. When their soft purr-r-r-r, purr-r-r-r had first changed into sleepy little snores, and then died away altogether, Mrs. Chinchilla jumped down out of the window, and went for her morning airing in the back yard. At the same time the druggist passed behind a tall desk to mix some medicine, and the shop was left alone.
Just then the Boy (for he hadn't gone away at all; he had just stooped out of sight) rushed in the door quickly, snatched one of the kittens out of the round ball, and ran away with it as fast as he could run. Pretty soon Mrs. Chinchilla came back, and of course she counted the kittens the very first thing. She always did it. To her surprise and fright she found only two instead of three. She knew she couldn't be mistaken. There were five kittens in her last family, and two less in this family; and five kittens less two kittens is three kittens. One chinchilla catkin gone! What should she do?
She had once heard a lady say that there were too many cats in the world already, but she had no patience with people who made such wicked speeches. Her kittens had always been so beautiful that they sometimes sold for fifty cents apiece, and none of them had ever been drowned.
Mrs. Chinchilla knew in a second just where that kitten had gone. It makes a pussy-cat very quick and bright and wise to take care of and train large families of frisky kittens, with very little help from their father in bringing them up. She knew that that Boy had carried off the kitten, and she intended to have it back, and scratch the Boy with some long scratches, if she could only get the chance. Looking at her claws, she found them nice and sharp, and as the druggist opened the door for a customer Mrs. Chinchilla slipped out, with just one backward glance, as much as to say, “Gone out; will be back soon.” Then she dashed across the street, and waited on the steps of the Boy's house. Very soon a man came with a bundle, and when the house-maid opened the door Mrs. Chinchilla walked in. She hadn't any visiting-card with her; but then the Boy hadn't left any card when he called for the kitten, so she didn't care for that.
The housemaid didn't see her when she slipped in. It was a very nice house to hold such a heartless boy, she thought. The parlor door was open, but she knew the kitten wouldn't be there, so she ran upstairs. When she reached the upper hall she stood perfectly still, with her ears up and her whiskers trembling. Suddenly she heard a faint mew, then another, and then a laugh; that was the Boy. She pushed open a door that was ajar, and walked into the nursery. The Boy was seated in the middle of the floor, tying the kitten to a tin cart, and the poor little thing was mewing piteously. Mrs. Chinchilla dashed up to the Boy, scratched him as many long scratches as she had time for at that moment, took the frightened kitten in her kind, gentle mouth, the way all mother-cats do (because if they carried them in their forepaws they wouldn't have enough left to walk on), and was downstairs and out on the front doorstep before the housemaid had finished paying the man for the bundle. And when she got that chinchilla catkin home in the safe, sunny bay-window, she washed it over and over and over so many times that it never forgot, so long as it lived, the day it was stolen by the Boy.
When the Boy's mother hurried upstairs to see why he was crying so loud, she told him that he must expect to be scratched by mother-cats if he stole their kittens. “I shall take your pretty Fauntleroy collar off,” she said; “it doesn't match your disposition.”
The Boy cried bitterly until luncheon time, but when he came to think over the matter, he knew that his mother was right, and Mrs. Chinchilla was right, too; so he treated all mother-cats and their kittens more kindly after that.
“It is not the gay forms he meets in the fairy-tale which charm the child, but a spiritual, invisible truth lying far deeper.”—Froebel.
Far away, in the depths of a great green rustling wood, there lived a Fir-tree. She was tall and dark and fragrant; so tall that her topmost plumes seemed waving about in the clouds, and her branches were so thick and strong and close set that down below them on the ground it was dark almost as night.
There were many other trees in the forest, as tall and grand as she, and when they bent and bowed to each other, as the wind played in their branches, you could hear a wonderful lovely sound, like the great organ when it plays softly in the church.
Down below, under the trees, the ground was covered with a glossy brown carpet of the sharp, needle-like leaves the fir-trees had let fall, and on this carpet there were pointed brown fir cones lying, looking dry and withered, and yet bearing under their scales many little seeds, hidden away like very precious letters in their dainty envelopes.
Even on bright summer days this wood was cool and dark, and, as you walked about on the soft brown carpet, you could hear the wonderful song the pine needles made as they rubbed against each other; and perhaps far away in the top of some tall tree you could hear the wood-thrush sing out gladly.
All around the great Fir-tree, where her cones had dropped, a family of young firs was growing up,—very tiny yet, so tiny you might have crushed them as you walked, and not felt them under your foot.
The Fir-tree spread her thick branches over them, and kept off the fierce wind and the bitter cold, and under her shelter they were growing strong.
They were all fine little trees, but one of them, that stood quite apart from the rest, was the finest of all, very straight and well shaped and handsome. Every day he looked up at the mother-tree, and saw how straight and strong she grew,—how the wind bent and waved her branches, but did not stir her great trunk; and as he looked, he sent his own rootlets farther down into the dark earth, and held his tiny head up more proudly.
The other trees did not all try to grow strong and tall. Indeed, one of them said, “Why should I try to grow? Who can see me here in this dark wood? What good will it do for me to try? I can never be as fine and strong as the mother-tree.”
So he was unhappy and hung his head, and let the wind blow him further and further over toward the ground; and as he did not care for his rootlets, they lost their hold in the earth, and by and by he withered quite away.
But our brave little Fir-tree grew on; and when a long time had gone by, his head was on a level with his mother's lowest branches, and he could listen and hear all the whispering and talking that went on among the great trees. So he learned many things, for the trees were old and wise; and the birds, who are such great travelers, had told them many wonderful things that had happened in far-off lands.
And the Fir-tree asked his mother many, many questions. “Dear mother-tree,” he said, “shall we always live here? Shall I keep on growing until I am a grand tall tree like you? And will you always be with me?”
“Who knows!” said the mother-tree, rustling in all her branches. “If we are stout-hearted, and grow strong in trunk and perfect in shape, then perhaps we shall be taken away from the forest and made useful somewhere,—and we want to be useful, little son.”
It was about this time that the young Fir-tree made himself some music that he used to whisper when the winds blew and rocked his branches. This is the little song, but I cannot sing it as he did.
And one day, when he was singing this song to himself, some birds fluttered near, pleased with the music, and as he seemed kind they began to build their nest in his branches,
Then what a proud Fir-tree, that the birds should choose him to take care of them! He would not play now with the wind as it came frolicking by, but stood straight, that he might not shake the pretty soft nest. And when the eggs were laid at last, all his leaves stroked each other for joy, and the noise they made was so sweet that the mother-tree bent over to see why he was so happy.
The mother-bird sat patiently on the nest all day, and when, now and then, she flew away to rest her tired little legs, the father-bird came to keep the eggs warm.
So the Fir-tree was never alone; and now he asked the birds some of the many questions he had once asked his mother, “Tell me, dear birdies,” he said, “what does the mother-tree mean? She says if I grow strong, I shall be taken away to be useful somewhere. How can a Fir-tree be useful if he is taken away from the forest where he was born?”
So the birds told him how he could be useful: how perhaps men might take him for the mast of a ship, and fasten to him, strong and firm, the great white sails that send the ship like a bird over the water; or that he might be used to hold a bright flag, as it waved in the wind. Then the mother-bird thought of the happy Christmas time, for the birds and flowers and trees know all about it; and she told the Fir of the Christmas greens that were cut in the forest; of the branches and boughs that were used to make the houses fresh and bright; and of the Christmas trees, on which gifts were hung for the children.
Now the Fir-tree had seen some children one day, and he knew about their bright eyes, and their rosy cheeks, and their dear soft little hands. The day they came into the woods, they had made a ring and danced about him, and one little girl had held up her finger, and asked the others to hush and hear the song he was singing.
So of all the thing's the birds had told him, the sweetest to him was about the Christmas tree. If only he might be a Christmas tree, and have the children dance about him again, and feel their presents among his green branches!
So he did all that a little tree could do to grow strong in every part, and each day he sang his song:&&
Soon the days began to grow cold. The birdlings who had been born in the Fir-tree's branches had gone far away to the South. The father and mother bird had gone too, and on the way had stopped to say good-by to the brave little tree.
The white snow had fallen in gentle flakes, and covered the cones and the glossy carpet of pine needles. All was still and shining and cold in the forest, and the great trees seemed taller and darker than ever.
One day some men came into the wood with saws and ropes and axes, and cut down many of the great trees, and among these was the mother-fir. They fastened oxen to all the trees, and dragged them away, rustling and waving, over the smooth snow.
The mother-tree had gone,—“gone to be useful,” said the little Fir; and though he missed her very much, and the world seemed very empty when he looked up and no longer saw her thick branches and her strong trunk, yet he was not unhappy, for he was a brave little Fir.
Still the days grew colder, and often the Fir-tree wondered if the children who had made a ring and danced about him would remember him when Christmas time came.
He could not grow, for the weather was too cold, and so he had the more time for thinking. He thought of the birds, of the mother-tree, and, most of all, of the little girl who had lifted her finger, and said, “Hush! hear the Fir-tree sing.”
Sometimes the days seemed long, and he sighed in all his branches, and almost thought he would never be a Christmas tree.
But suddenly, one day, he heard something far away that sounded like the ringing of Christmas bells. It was the children laughing and singing, as they ran over the snow.
Nearer they came, and stood beside the Fir. “Yes,” said the little girl, “it is my very tree, my very singing tree!”
“Indeed,” said the father, “it will be a good Christmas tree. See how straight and well shaped it is.”
Then the tree was glad; not proud, for he was a good little Fir, but glad that they saw he had tried his best.
{Illustration: Not all firs can be Christmas trees.}
So they cut him down and carried him away on a great sled; away from the tall dark trees, from the white shining snow-carpet at their feet, and from all the murmuring and whispering that go on within the forest.
The little trees stood on tiptoe and waved their green branches for “Good-by,” and the great trees bent their heads to watch him go.
“Not all firs can be Christmas trees,” said they; “only those who grow their best.”
The good Fir-tree stood in the children's own room. Round about his feet were flowers and mosses and green boughs. From his branches hung toys and books and candies, and at the end of each glossy twig was a bright glittering Christmas candle.
The doors were slowly opened; the children came running in; and when they saw the shining lights, and the Christmas tree proudly holding their presents, they made a ring, and danced about him, singing.
And the Fir-tree was very happy!
“Story-telling is a real strengthening spirit-bath.”—Froebel.
Piccola lived in Italy, where the oranges grow, and where all the year the sun shines warm and bright. I suppose you think Piccola a very strange name for a little girl; but in her country it was not strange at all, and her mother thought it the sweetest name a little girl ever had.
Piccola had no kind father, no big brother or sister, and no sweet baby to play with and to love. She and her mother lived all alone in an old stone house that looked on a dark, narrow street. They were very poor, and the mother was away from home almost every day, washing clothes and scrubbing floors, and working hard to earn money for her little girl and herself. So you see Piccola was alone a great deal of the time; and if she had not been a very happy, contented little child, I hardly know what she would have done. She had no playthings except a heap of stones in the back yard that she used for building houses, and a very old, very ragged doll that her mother had found in the street one day.
But there was a small round hole in the stone wall at the back of her yard, and her greatest pleasure was to look through that into her neighbor's garden. When she stood on a stone, and put her eyes close to the hole, she could see the green grass in the garden, smell the sweet flowers, and even hear the water plashing into the fountain. She had never seen any one walking in the garden, for it belonged to an old gentleman who did not care about grass and flowers.
One day in the autumn her mother told her that the old gentleman had gone away, and had rented his house to a family of little American children, who had come with their sick mother to spend the winter in Italy. After this, Piccola was never lonely, for all day long the children ran and played and danced and sang in the garden. It was several weeks before they saw her at all, and I am not sure they would ever have done so but that one day the kitten ran away, and in chasing her they came close to the wall, and saw Piccola's black eyes looking through the hole in the stones. They were a little frightened at first, and did not speak to her; but the next day she was there again, and Rose, the oldest girl, went up to the wall and talked to her a little while. When the children found that she had no one to play with and was very lonely, they talked to her every day, and often brought her fruits and candies, and passed them through the hole in the wall.
One day they even pushed the kitten through; but the hole was hardly large enough for her, and she mewed and scratched, and was very much frightened. After that the little boy said he should ask his father if the hole might not be made larger, and then Piccola could come in and play with them. The father had found out that Piccola's mother was a good woman, and that the little girl herself was sweet and kind, so that he was very glad to have some of the stones broken away, and an opening made for Piccola to come in.
How excited she was, and how glad the children were when she first stepped into the garden! She wore her best dress, a long bright-colored woolen skirt and a white waist. Round her neck was a string of beads, and on her feet were little wooden shoes. It would seem very strange to us—would it not?—to wear wooden shoes; but Piccola and her mother had never worn anything else, and never had any money to buy stockings. Piccola almost always ran about barefooted, like the kittens and the chickens and the little ducks. What a good time they had that day, and how glad Piccola's mother was that her little girl could have such a pleasant, safe place to play in, while she was away at work!
By and by December came, and the little Americans began to talk about Christmas. One day, when Piccola's curly head and bright eyes came peeping through the hole in the wall, they ran to her and helped her in; and as they did so, they all asked her at once what she thought she would have for a Christmas present. “A Christmas present!” said Piccola. “Why, what is that?”
All the children looked surprised at this, and Rose said, rather gravely, “Dear Piccola, don't you know what Christmas is?”
Oh, yes, Piccola knew it was the happy day when the baby Christ was born, and she had been to church on that day, and heard the beautiful singing, and had seen a picture of the Babe lying in the manger, with cattle and sheep sleeping round about. Oh, yes, she knew all that very well, but what was a Christmas present?
Then the children began to laugh, and to answer her all together. There was such a clatter of tongues that she could hear only a few words now and then, such as “chimney,” “Santa Claus,” “stockings,” “reindeer,” “Christmas Eve,” “candies and toys.” Piccola put her hands over her ears, and said, “Oh, I can't understand one word. You tell me, Rose.” Then Rose told her all about jolly old Santa Claus, with his red cheeks and white beard and fur coat, and about his reindeer and sleigh full of toys. “Every Christmas Eve,” said Rose, “he comes down the chimney, and fills the stockings of all the good children; so, Piccola, you hang up your stocking, and who knows what a beautiful Christmas present you will find when morning comes!” Of course Piccola thought this was a delightful plan, and was very pleased to hear about it. Then all the children told her of every Christmas Eve they could remember, and of the presents they had had; so that she went home thinking of nothing but dolls, and hoops, and balls, and ribbons, and marbles, and wagons, and kites. She told her mother about Santa Claus, and her mother seemed to think that perhaps he did not know there was any little girl in that house, and very likely he would not come at all. But Piccola felt very sure Santa Claus would remember her, for her little friends had promised to send a letter up the chimney to remind him.
Christmas Eve came at last. Piccola's mother hurried home from her work; they had their little supper of soup and bread, and soon it was bedtime,—time to get ready for Santa Claus. But oh! Piccola remembered then for the first time that the children had told her she must hang up her stocking, and she hadn't any, and neither had her mother.
How sad, how sad it was! Now Santa Claus would come, and perhaps be angry because he couldn't find any place to put the present. The poor little girl stood by the fireplace; and the big tears began to run down her cheeks. Just then her mother called to her, “Hurry, Piccola; come to bed.” What should she do? But she stopped crying, and tried to think; and in a moment she remembered her wooden shoes, and ran off to get one of them. She put it close to the chimney, and said to herself, “Surely Santa Claus will know what it's there for. He will know I haven't any stockings, so I gave him the shoe instead.”
Then she went off happily to her bed, and was asleep almost as soon as she had nestled close to her mother's side.
The sun had only just begun to shine, next morning, when Piccola awoke. With one jump she was out on the floor and running toward the chimney. The wooden shoe was lying where she had left it, but you could never, never guess what was in it.
{Illustration: See the present Santa Claus brought me}
Piccola had not meant to wake her mother, but this surprise was more than any little girl could bear and yet be quiet; so she danced to the bed with the shoe in her hand, calling, “Mother, mother! look, look! see the present Santa Claus brought me!”
Her mother raised her head and looked into the shoe. “Why, Piccola,” she said, “a little chimney swallow nestling in your shoe? What a good Santa Claus to bring you a bird!”
“Good Santa Claus, dear Santa Claus!” cried Piccola; and she kissed her mother and kissed the bird and kissed the shoe, and even threw kisses up the chimney, she was so happy.
When the birdling was taken out of the shoe, they found that he did not try to fly, only to hop about the room; and as they looked closer, they could see that one of his wings was hurt a little. But the mother bound it up carefully, so that it did not seem to pain him, and he was so gentle that he took a drink of water from a cup, and even ate crumbs and seeds from Piccola's hand. She was a proud little girl when she took her Christmas present to show the children in the garden. They had had a great many gifts,—dolls that could say “mamma,” bright picture-books, trains of cars, toy pianos; but not one of their playthings was alive, like Piccola's birdling. They were as pleased as she, and Rose hunted about the house till she found a large wicker cage that belonged to a blackbird she once had. She gave the cage to Piccola, and the swallow seemed to make himself quite at home in it at once, and sat on the perch winking his bright eyes at the children. Rose had saved a bag of candies for Piccola, and when she went home at last, with the cage and her dear swallow safely inside it, I am sure there was not a happier little girl in the whole country of Italy.
“Turn back observantly into your own youth, and awaken, warm, and vivify the eternal youth of your mind.”—FROEBEL.
When I was a little girl my sister and I lived in the country. She was younger than I, and the dearest, fattest little toddlekins of a sister you ever knew. She always wanted to do exactly as I did, so that I had to be very careful and do the right things; for if I had been naughty she would surely have been naughty too, and that would have made me very sad.
As we lived in the country we had none of the things to amuse us that city children have. We couldn't walk in crowded streets and see people and look in at beautiful shop-windows, or hear the street-organs play and see the monkeys do tricks; we couldn't go to dancing school, nor to children's parties, nor to the circus to see the animals.
But we had lovely plays, after all.
In the spring we hunted for mayflowers, and sailed boats in the brooks, and gathered fluffy pussy-willows. We watched the yellow dandelions come, one by one, in the short green grass, and we stood under the maple-trees and watched the sap trickle from their trunks into the great wooden buckets; for that maple sap was to be boiled into maple sugar and syrup, and we liked to think about it. In the summer we went strawberrying and blueberrying, and played “hide and coop” behind the tall yellow haycocks, and rode on the top of the full haycarts. In the fall we went nutting, and pressed red and yellow autumn leaves between the pages of our great Webster's Dictionary; we gathered apples, and watched the men at work at the cider-presses, and the farmers as they threshed their wheat and husked their corn. And in the winter we made snow men, and slid downhill from morning till night when there was any snow to slide upon, and went sleighing behind our dear old horse Jack, and roasted apples in the ashes of the great open fire.
But one of the things we cared for most was our froggery, and we used to play there for hours together in the long summer days.
Perhaps you don't know what a froggery is; but you do know what a frog is, and so you can guess that a froggery is a place where frogs live. My little sister and I used at first to catch the frogs and keep them in tin cans filled with water; but when we thought about it we saw that the poor froggies couldn't enjoy this, and that it was cruel to take them away from their homes and make them live in unfurnished tin houses. So one day I asked my father if he would give us a part of the garden brook for our very own. He laughed, and said, “Yes,” if we wouldn't carry it away.
Our garden was as large as four or five city blocks, and a beautiful silver-clear brook flowed through it, turning here and there, and here and there breaking into tinkling little waterfalls, and dropping gently into clear, still pools.
It was one of these deep, quiet pools that we chose for our froggery. It was almost hidden on two sides by thick green alder-bushes, so that it was always cool and pleasant there, even on the hottest days.
My father put pieces of fine wire netting into the water on each of the four sides of the pool, and so arranged them that we could slip those on the banks up and down as we pleased. Whenever we went there we always took away the side fences, and sat flat down upon the smooth stones at the edges of the brook and played with the frogs.
Here we used to watch our gay young polliwogs grow into frogs, one leg at a time coming out at each “corner” of their fat wriggling bodies. We kept two great bull-frogs,—splendid bass singers both of them,—that had been stoned by naughty small boys, and left for dead by the roadside. We found them there, bound up their broken legs and bruised backs, and nursed them quite well again in one corner of the froggery that we called the hospital. In another corner was the nursery, and here we kept all the tiniest frogs; though we always let them out once a day to play with the older ones, for fear that they never would learn anything if they were kept entirely to themselves. One of our great bull-frogs grew so strong and well, after being in the hospital for a while, that he jumped over the highest of the wire fences, which was two feet higher than any frog ever was known to jump, so our hired man said,—jumped over and ran away. We called him the “General,” because he was the largest of our frogs and the oldest, we thought. (He hadn't any gray hairs, but he was very much wrinkled.) We were sorry to lose the General, and couldn't think why he should run away, when we gave him such good things to eat and tried to make him so happy. My father said that perhaps his home was in a large pond, some distance off, where there were so many hundred frogs that it was quite a gay city life for them, while the froggery was in a quiet brook in our quiet old garden. (If I were a frog, it seems to me I should like such a home better than a great noisy stagnant pond near the road, where I should be frightened to death half a dozen times a day; but there is no accounting for tastes!)
{Illustration: “We were sorry to lose the General.”}
But what do you think? After staying away for three days and nights the General came back safe and sound! We knew it was our own beloved General, and not any common stranger-frog, because there was the scar on his back where the boys had stoned him. My little sister thought that perhaps the General was born in Lily Pad Pond, on the other side of the village, and only went back to get a sight of the pond lilies, which were just in full bloom. If that was so, I cannot blame the General; for snow-white pond lilies, with their golden hearts and the green frills round their necks, are the loveliest things in the world, as they float among their shiny pads on the surface of the pond. Did you ever see them?
All our frogs had names of their own, of course, and we knew them all apart, although they looked just alike to other people. There was Prince Pouter, Brownie, and Goldilegs; Bright-Eye, Chirp, and Gray Friar; Hop-o'-my-Thumb, Croaker, Baby Mine, Nimblefoot, Tiny Tim, and many others.
We were so afraid that our frogs wouldn't like the froggery better than any other place in the brook that we gave them all the pleasures we could think of. They always had plenty of fat juicy flies and water-bugs for their dinners, and after a while we put some silver shiners and tiny minnows into the pool, so that they would have fishes to play with as well as other frogs. You know you do not always like to play with other children; sometimes you like kittens and dogs and birds better.
Then we gave our frogs little vacations once in a while. We tied a long soft woolen string very gently round one of their hind legs, fastened it to a twig of one of the alderbushes, and let them take a long swim and make calls on all their friends.
We had a singing-school for them once a week. It was very troublesome, for they didn't like to stand in line a bit, and it is quite useless to try and teach a class in singing unless the scholars will stand in a row or keep in some sort of order. We used to put a nice little board across the pool, and then try to get the frogs to sit quietly in line during their lesson. The General behaved quite nicely, and really got into the spirit of the thing, so that he was a splendid example for the head of the class. Then we used to put Myron W. Whitney next in line, on account of his beautiful bass voice. We named him after a gentleman who had once sung in our church, and I hope if he ever heard of it he didn't mind, for the frog was really a credit to him. Myron W. Whitney behaved nearly as well as the General, but we could never get him to sing unless we held the class just before bedtime, and then the little frogs were so sleepy that they kept tumbling out of the singing-school into the pool. That was the trouble with them all; they never could quite see the difference between school and pool. It seems to me they must have known it was very slight after all.
Towards the end of the summer we had trained them so well that once in a long while we could actually get them all still at once, and all facing the right way as they sat upon that board. Oh! it was a beautiful sight, and worth any amount of trouble and work! Twenty-one frogs in a row, all in fresh green suits, with clean white shirt fronts, washed every day. The General and Myron W. Whitney always looked as if they were bursting with pride, and as they were too fat and lazy to move, we could generally count upon their good behavior.
We thought that if we could only get them to look down into the pool, which made such a lovely looking-glass, and just see for once what a beautiful picture they made,—sitting so straight and still, and all so nicely graded as to size,—they would like it better and do it a little more willingly.
We thought, too, the baby frogs would be ashamed, when they looked in the glass, to see that while the big frogs stayed still of their own free will, THEY had to be held down with forked sticks. But we could never discover that they were ashamed.
So when everything was complete my little sister used to “let go” of the baby frogs (for, as I said, she had to hold them down while we were forming the line), and I would begin the lesson. Sometimes they would listen a minute, and then they would begin their pranks. They would insist on playing leap-frog, which is a very nice game, but not appropriate for school. Tiny Tim would jump from the foot of the class straight over all the others on to Myron W. Whitney's back. Baby Mine would try to get between Croaker and Goldilegs, where there wasn't any room. Nimblefoot would twist round on the board and turn his back to me, which was very impolite, as I was the teacher. Finally, Hop-o'-my-Thumb would go splash into the pool, and all the rest, save the good old General, would follow him, and the lesson would end. I suppose you have heard frogs singing just after sunset, when you were going to bed? Some people think the big bull-frogs say, “JUGO'RUM! JUGO'RUM! JUGO'RUM!” But I don't think this is at all likely, as the frogs never drink anything but water in their whole lives.
We used to think that some of the frogs said, “KERCHUG! KERCHUG!” and that the largest one said, “GOTACRUMB! GOTACRUMB! GOTACRUMB!” Perhaps you can't make it sound right, but if you listen to the frogs you can very soon do it.
We thought the frogs in our froggery the very best singers in all the country round. After our mother had tucked us in our little beds and kissed us good-night, she used to open the window, that we might hear the chirping and humming and kerchugging of our frogs down in the dear old garden.
As we wandered dreamily off into Sandman's Land, the very last sound we heard was the cheerful chorus of our baby frogs, and the deep bass notes of Myron W. Whitney and the old General.
“The whole future efficiency of man is seen in the child as a germ.”— FROEBEL.
On this day, children, the twenty-first of April, we always remember our dear Froebel; for it was his birthday.
We bring flowers and vines to hang about his picture, we sing the songs and play the games he loved the best, and we remember the story of his life. We thank him all day long; for he made the kindergarten for us, he invented these pretty things that children love to do, he thought about all the pleasant work and pleasant play that make the kindergarten such a happy place.
On this very day, more than a hundred years ago, the baby Froebel came to his happy father and mother. He was a little German baby, like Elsa's brother and Fritz's little sister, and when he began to talk his first words were German ones.
But the dear mother did not stay long with her little Friedrich, for she died when he was not a year old, and he was left a very sad and lonely baby. His father was a busy minister, who had sermons to write, and sick people to see, and unhappy people to comfort, from one end of the week to the other, and he had no time to attend to his little son; so Friedrich was left to the housemaid, who was too busy herself to care for him properly. She was often so hurried that she was obliged to shut him up in a room alone, to keep him out of her way, and then it was very hard work for the child to amuse himself.
The only window in this room looked out on a church that workmen were repairing, and Friedrich often watched these men, and tried to do just as they did. He took all the small pieces of furniture, and piled one on top of the other to make a big, big church, like the one outside; but the chairs and stools did not fit each other very well, and soon the church would come tumbling about his head. When Froebel grew to be a man, he remembered this, and made the building blocks for us, so that we might make fine, tall churches and houses as often as we liked.
Rebel's home was surrounded by other buildings, and was close to the great church I told you about. There were fences and hedges all around the house, and at the back there were sloping fields, stretching up a high hill.
When the little boy grew old enough to walk, he played in the garden alone, a great deal of the time; but he was not allowed to go outside at all, and never could get even a glimpse of the world beyond. He could only see the blue sky overhead, and feel the fresh wind blowing from the hills.
His father had no time for him, his mother was dead, and I think perhaps he would have died himself, for very sadness and lonesomeness, if it had not been for his older brothers. Now and then, when they were at home, they played and talked with him, and he grew to love them very dearly indeed.
When Friedrich was four years old, his father brought the children a new mother, and for a time the little boy was very happy. The mother was quite kind at first; and now Froebel had some one to walk with in the garden, some one to talk with in the daytime and to tuck him in his little bed at night. But by and by, when a baby boy came to the new mother, she had no more room in her heart for poor Friedrich, and he was more miserable than ever. He tried to be a good boy, but no one seemed to understand him, and he was often blamed for naughty things he had not done, and was never praised or loved.
When he had learned to read he was sent to school, though not with other boys, for his father thought it better for him to be with girls. The school was pleasant and quiet, and Friedrich liked the teacher very much. Every morning the children read from the Bible, and learned sweet songs and hymns which the little boy remembered all his days.
The life at home grew no happier, as Friedrich grew older; indeed, he seemed to be more in the way and to get into trouble more often.
When he was ten years old his uncle came to visit them, and seeing Friedrich so unhappy, and fearing he would not grow up a good boy unless some one cared for him, the good uncle asked to be allowed to take the child home with him to live.
Now, at last, Friedrich had five happy years!
His uncle lived in a pretty town on the banks of a sparkling little river. Everything was pleasant in the house, and Friedrich went to school with forty boys of his own age. He jumped and ran with them in the playgrounds, he learned to play all kinds of games, and he was happy everywhere,—at school, at home, at church, playing or working.
When these five pleasant years had gone by, Froebel had finished school, and now he must decide what he would do to earn his living. He had always loved flowers, since the days when he played all alone in his father's garden, and he liked to be out-of-doors and to see things growing; so he made up his mind to be a surveyor, like our George Washington, you know, and to learn, besides, how to take care of trees and forests.
He studied and worked very hard at these things, and gained a great deal of knowledge about flowers and plants and trees and rocks.
By and by he left this work and went to college, where he studied a long time and grew to be very wise indeed. There were numbers of things he had learned to do: he could measure land, take care of woods, and draw maps; he could make plans of houses, and show men how to build them; he knew all about fine stones and minerals, and could sort and arrange them; but he found, at last, that there was nothing in the world he liked so well as teaching, for he loved children very much, and he liked to be with them. When Froebel was a grown man, thirty years old, a great war broke out in Germany, and he went away to fight for his country; like our George Washington again, you see. He marched away with the soldiers, and fought bravely for a year; and then the war was over, and he went back to his quiet work again.
For the rest of his life Froebel went on teaching all kinds of people,—boys and men, and young girls and grown-up women; but he never was quite happy or satisfied till he thought of teaching tiny children, just like you.
He remembered very well how sad and miserable he was when a little boy, with no one to love him, nobody to play with, and nothing to do; so he thought of the kindergarten, where there are pleasant playmates, pretty work, happy play for everybody, and teachers who love little children.
He was an old man when he thought of the kindergarten; but he was never too old to play with children, and people who went to his country home used to see him, with the little ones about him, playing the Pigeon House, or the Wheel, or the Farmer, or some of the games he made for us.
He was often very poor, and he worked very hard all his life; but he did not care for this at all, if he could help other people and make children happy. And when, at last, it was time for him to die, and to go back to God, who sent him to us, he was quiet and happy through all his sickness, and almost the last words he said were about the flowers he loved so well, and about God who had been so good to him.
So this is the reason, little ones, that we keep Rebel's birthday every year,—because we want you to remember all he did for little children, and to learn to love him just as he loved you.
“Come, let us live with our children; so shall their lives bring peace and joy to us; so shall we begin to be, and to become wise.”— FROEBEL.