Children's Rights and Others by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin;Nora Smith
page 13 of 146 (08%)
page 13 of 146 (08%)
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Robert Louis Stevenson shows, in his "Child's Garden of Verses," that
he is one of the very few people who remember and appreciate this phase of childhood. Could anything be more deliciously real than these verses? "In winter I get up at night, And dress by yellow candle light: In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day; I have to go to bed and see The birds still hopping on the tree, And hear the grown-up people's feet Still going past me on the street. And does it not seem hard to you, That when the sky is clear and blue, And I should like so much to play, I have to go to bed by day?" Mr. Hopkinson Smith has written a witty little monograph on this relation of parents and children. I am glad to say, too, that it is addressed to fathers,--that "left wing" of the family guard, which generally manages to retreat during any active engagement, leaving the command to the inferior officer. This "left wing" is imposing on all full-dress parades, but when there is any fighting to be done it retires rapidly to the rear, and only wheels into line when the smoke of the conflict has passed out of the atmosphere. "Open your heart and your arms wide for your daughters," he says, "and keep them wide open; don't leave all that to their mothers. An intimacy will grow with the years which will fit them for another |
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