said. "That amount will pay your
way out to some strange place, and
keep you for a time.
Then you must

do the best you can."

Paul stood waiting. But as his father didn't seem inclined to speak again, he walked toward the door. “Come, Frances," he said, and I followed him

out.

So we were married the next day by a justice in a town you reach after a long trolley ride. Then events gathered quickly. We told you of our marriage. I packed my trunk, said a frozen good-by to you and father, and that same night we took the train for this little town.

During the entire journey Paul and I sat silent, looking aimlessly out the window. I felt just as I used to when I was a little girl and for some misdemeanor you had sent me upstairs to bed. Just as then, I felt dreadfully alone, and did not understand exactly why punishment had befallen me. I recalled one particular crime for which you punished me when I was about four years old. You had told me repeatedly that I must not touch a cutglass bowl you kept in the middle of the dining-room table. And with all my soul I wanted to get close to the bowl, to put just the tips of my fingers on its crusted surface. So one day I obeyed the driving desire, and climbed onto a chair; but at the critical moment, when I was stretching high for attainment, you entered the room, and without a word, you took me by the hand and led me upstairs to bed.

And the very next day you were called away and your sister, my aunt Betty, came to take care of me. Human desire and human curiosity, being stronger than any reason you had given me for not touching the alluring bowl, sent me again. to gaze upon it-and to fulfil my object, if I might. But again detection stole upon me. I looked up to find Aunt Betty regarding me; but with a smile!

"Isn't the bowl beautiful?" she asked.

lap, drew the bowl to her, and put it into my eager hands. My little heart almost stopped beating. Joy surged through me; wonder held me, awe because I was allowed to let my eager, sensitive fingers caress the bowl. Also a passion of gratitude filled me for Aunt Betty's confidence in my power to hold the bowl safely. I couldn't have dropped it then; I should have died rather than let it slip from my clasp. . .

As the train whizzed on, I thought, too, of that June day in our garden, when you wouldn't let me touch the bowl-you know what I mean, mother dear! You answered my boundless curiosity about life by advising me not to think about such matters then! You put up restrictions, gave me rules to be followed, when what I wanted was to know! Well, perhaps mothers fear, for some reason that I, of course, can't know, to tell the truth to their little girls; but the tragedy here is that the young rebel against mere restrictions. They want knowledge.

I'll spare you the details of how we settled in our little home; of Paul's searching for and finally securing a position-as helper to the transplanter in the large greenhouses which give the town its name. He arrives home every evening, usually very tired, but always smelling fragrantly of a thousand flowers. We don't find much to talk about; I think we both still feel a little strange together.

But tonight when he came home, I felt that he was in a rebellious and bitter mood. He is kind to me, but indifferent, perhaps because of this very strangeness, and I know he secretly frets about the downfall of all his aspirations. He is still very young, while I have lived a hundred years, I think. He sat down to the dinner I had prepared, and while he was eating his pudding we heard a little sound. Something or some one was pushing open the kitchen door.

Having no fear of intrusion from strangers, I sat quite still, and presently

tered the room. He came straight
to me, and as he neared me, I recognized
him as the baby of a distant neighbor.

He was tired and dirty, and had been crying, poor little fellow! Clearly he wanted his mother. My heart went out to him, and in a moment I had him folded close to me. As he nestled down

against me, for the first time since my coming here I was filled with peace and a kind of happy anticipation.

I hushed the child against me, and soon he went to sleep, a sobbing sleep. I had quite forgotten Paul; but at last I felt his gaze. "You've been lonely, Frances," he cried. "Lonely and unhappy!"

I did not answer.

"I've been thinking only of my side," he continued. He left his place then and came to me, and stood looking down at the little tear-stained face at my breast. "And yet you had to leave everybody and come with me out here alone." We were both silent then, but drawn closer than ever before. After a time Paul went on: "I never realized till now that a child really is coming to us. It doesn't seem possible."

I nodded. "And we'll have to take care of it and teach it-oh, teach it many things-" And then I just couldn't keep the tears back.

Paul took the sleeping boy from me and put him down on the lounge near the window. When he returned, he knelt and put his arms about me, and he was very comforting. It seemed as though I had been aching to have some one hold me; to have some one care for me again. We had come through deeps to this moment of understanding, of seeing clearing.

After a long, sympathetic silence, Paul said: "Wouldn't you like your mother to be with you-next month?”

"I daren't think how greatly I want her," I said. "But do you think she would come to me, Paul?"

"I don't know," he said gently; "you see, I never had a mother that I can remember. It must be great to have a real mother!" Then after a while:

I'll take the child home. I'll be gone over an hour, so you'll have plenty of time to write a long letter." So I have written. But one more word. Your faith in me, mother dear, was perhaps beautiful, but blind-pitiably blind! And if this little one coming to me be a daughter, I pray I shall not be blind. But I believe my scorching experience has opened my vision; for at least I shall know my child to be human, with human frailties, human curiosities. I shall not believe that simply because she is a daughter of mine, the tragedy which befell my neighbor's child could not possibly befall mine!

For I know how terribly helpless a young girl is, how woefully unequipped, when she is told simply that she mustn't do this and she mustn't do that, but never told why. I know how bewildered she feels when, as she grows older and is allowed intimate contact with boys, emotions, the meaning of which she doesn't remotely know, sweep in on her.

There shall be no such wall of mystery between my daughter and me. Í shall try to establish a bond between us that will draw her frankly to me in every perplexity. She shall not be harassed by the seeming paradoxes of life. She shall not, I promise you, be allowed to face temptations unprepared; for, well-reared or not, every girl does face real temptations in her intimate, unchaperoned association with boys. She shall know why it is best to avoid even the appearance of evil. Too, she shall learn that she is the daughter of thousands of men and women, all swayed by emotions that make the race go on; that she is not exempt from the rush of such emotions, but that she must harness them, give them proper place, till the beautiful time comes, the time of marriage and motherhood.

I hear Paul's step. So, mother, good night. And though I ask of you nothing but what in freedom and love you can give, I shall watch every mail till I hear from you.

FRANCES.

A

T the present time the state of children's literature is aggravated by adult theory, and conflicting advice comes from every quarter. I once heard a priest, whose boys were of the slums, complain that he saw no reason why libraries should try to prevent a child from reading any kind of story, provided it was not vicious. Advocate though I am of the very best that is written, there is truth in his claim. Two things every boy seeks to satisfy: his dreams, which may be high or low; and his ambitions, which usually seek expression through action of some kind. If he dreams of pirates, he wants any book he can reach on the subject of pirates; and when he is done with the best one, it only

on.

gives him a greater incentive to go on and And if, through guidance, he does not reach the mediocre story first, he will reach it last-or at least he will go on and on until his taste is satisfied.

Really, the difference between a supposed classic on Captain Kidd and a healthy, melodramatic story on Captain Kidd is not so great in quality that it matters very much which version is read first. The difference is a matter of literary expression, of the writer's art; and the democratic crowd of readers cares nothing for the art just so the content is stirring. It is surprising, even though we go on that principle, how much good writing one finds in the children's books published each year. The

average child's story-and as a matter of fact, the average adult's story as wellsimply serves as an outlet for the energy which is in him, and for the vital movement of events around him.

I have passed through slum districts and have watched small girls, dirty, with raucous voices, dancing gracefully before a handorgan; I have passed newsboys "shooting craps on the door-step. To such as these I would not deny the best literature, but I am more and more convinced that such as these are not prepared to respond immediately to a refined style. Rough in outlook, uncouth in manner, barbaric in expression, they need a literature more in accord with their untrained understanding. Yet educators are denying that the boy has a right to the red blood of the hero element in the literature of the past, and everything is being over-edited. In our writing for children, we are trying to close our eyes to the savage in the youngster.

There are theories that the child should not be brought in contact with fear. He is supposed to become fearless through the absence of any disturbing element in the books he reads; but he is not brave in the sense that what he reads trains him to meet fear bravely. The sooner we realize that there is an educative value to fear, the stronger will be the literary expression in the books our children read. Fairy tales are now pruned, and the lives of our legendary heroes are shorn of those dramatic climaxes which have kept them alive through the ages. Some people point to the primitive form of "Little Red Riding Hood" with a shudder, and blue pencil the story so that the wolf is deprived of a wholesome meal. There are others who even frown at "Mother Goose." Said the one-time Archbishop of Dublin, referring to "Old Father Long-Legs," "There in that nursery verse you may see an epitome of the history of all religious persecution." Said another iconoclastic critic, "The jingles consist of the most wanton, restless acts, with abominable reasons adduced therefrom." Yet the jingles persist through some indefinable quality which one calls vitality in literature.

There is fear expressed for children's literature simply because there are so many books published each year. Is it that every book should be a classic? Lucky indeed if each year discovers to us six books of semi-immortal worth! Classics are not

written every day. If we are anything, we are contemporaneous; we live in the age of news. Therefore our literature is newsy. It is right that the bulk of it should pass away with the months. I am almost willing that the publisher of "juveniles" should put forth six mediocre books to cover the manufacturing expenses of something really lasting. And if you criticize. our books from the standpoint of mediocrity of style, this is not an age of style but of statement and of doing. The mediocrity of expression such as we have reflects our culture.

The Twice-Told Tales

In our children's literature, however, there is a tendency to write down to a level of juvenile comprehension. How many "Gullivers," "Robinson Crusoes," and "Swiss Family Robinsons" have you seen retold? How many Bibles rewritten for the comprehension of the young? The fact is that all of our children's literature fits their comprehension too snugly. I believe in "Gulliver" as Swift told it; I believe in Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe"; I believe in the original "Swiss Family Robinson," of Wyss with just enough editing to lend. action to the narrative. If the classics are to be retold, let them be retold by word of mouth. I would have the story-hour in the home, the school, and the library crowd out the published rehash of a book.

This is my conservative self speaking. But when I view the demands of democracy, I find that much of the value of these originals depends on a comprehension of style, and the crowd does not care for style. Some theorists will say, if you cannot have the original, do not have any. But the chap of the tenement might grow up in ignorance of "Robinson Crusoe" if it were not told to him in a manner as glaring as that of his five-cent library. Where a child can understand even the tenth part of the original, give him the original; but where a retold version is told, be sure that it is as clear, as steadfast in its intention, as free from error, as the original. I have read garbled versions of Shakespeare twice as obscure as anything in Shakespeare. I even have my doubts as to the efficacy of Charles and Mary Lamb's "Tales from Shakespeare," as much as I love it. It is not necessary to give a child Shakespeare until he is of years to appreciate the story element in the plays. Lamb is a good introduction,

but turn the child loose in the original soon. That's what used to be done in days of old; and there are those of our elders who found time to read Shakespeare and Harry Castlemon and Oliver Optic at the same time.

Current Juveniles

It is true that mediocrity marks the average child's book, especially in the field. of fiction. But mediocre though the fiction may be, the girls' stories bring manners into homes where manners are crowded out by the stress of living; the boys of the street have their viciousness directed into channels of manliness, and are shown bravery which no longer spells bullying. I am an advocate of style and a believer in the story that lives. But librarians know that such effective pieces of writing as Stevenson's "Treasure Island" and Norman Duncan's "Adventures of Billy Topsail" remain on the circulating shelves, while flimsy stories of forest and field are worn threadbare in the course of a few months. Both of those classic books contain the penny-dreadful element in them enough red blood to satisfy the biggest "crap-shooter"--but it is the style which militates against them.

Our schools are to blame for this indifference to style. I am of the opinion that the matter-of-factness of our text-books destroys, or does not serve to awaken within the child, any warm response. And response is the basis of appreciation. Only when the school improves its supplementary reading can we hope for an improvement in taste; only when the school turns to the imagination as an asset will the higher quality of our literature manifest itself.

The boys and girls, therefore, who pore over the countless stories of average style are at least gleaning from them a manner which modern life needs. They are given adventurous stories of mountain and cañon, of valley and plain, of battleship and flying machine, written with a realism and with an accuracy every bit significant enough to impress them with a newspaper knowledge of what the world is about. There are two qualities in such fiction that commends it: cleanliness and, generally, accuracy. To some extent, they over-indulge a child's curiosity by passing from one volume into a series of any number of volumes; and that is where the mediocre bulk of our juvenile literature arises. As a matter of statistics, I find 673 volumes credited to only sixteen series in one catalogue. If the

library, however, through judicious advice, cannot turn the average boy toward the best that has been written, I do not see why that boy should not run the gamut of Henty or Brereton or Stratemeyer if he wants to, even though after he is through he will have only a Henty and a Stratemeyer taste. I do not see why a girl should not have as many "weepy" stories as her craving seeks. A boy won't be bored, and he won't wade through style for style's sake alone. A girl's endurance is limited, and she finally comes to the bottom of her tears. Tomlinson and Altschuler and Dudley and Barbour are healthy for the average boy; while Marion Ames Taggart, Annie Fellows Johnston, Etta A. Baker, and a dozen others bring brightness and sprightliness into many a dingy home.

The Spirit of the Times

We may believe that the dead level of our fiction for children is due to the everwidening problem of democracy; but how much better it is than the stories of days gone by, when there was a pernicious specializing of literature for the poorbooks and small tales which quibbled in morals and flaunted class distinction!

The modern child's interests are largely practical, and I do not believe I am far wrong when I state that most of our yearly deluge of children's literature deals with the romance of that practicality. Not only is the boy given books treating of the development of aeroplanes and of battleships, but he is likewise given stories which reveal supposititious cases under which these latest marvels might prove of use to the hero, or the hero to them. If Peary turns toward the North Pole, the newspaper accounts are converted by the dexterous author into an intimate narration of events as witnessed by the youthful hero who was Peary's right-hand man. There is no telling the number of Panama Canal stories. scheduled for sale for this year, or stories dealing with the efforts of the Boy Scouts and the Camp-Fire Girls.

There are three elements which regulate the character of juvenile literature: journalism demands an up-to-dateness in fiction; education exacts accuracy; scholarship results in a zealous exploitation of sources beyond the demands of child interest. Of the latter there is much to be said. majority of strange folk-tales, legends, fables, and religious superstitions served

The