"That's just what it's for, then. Couldn't Mr. Gallilee put up a
swing? And a 'flying circle' in the middle? You see they can't go
out on the roofs; so they must have something else that will seem
kind of flighty. And _I'll_ tell you how they'll learn their
letters. Sulie and I will paint 'em; great big ones, all colors; and
hang 'em up with ribbons, and every child that learns one, so as to
know it everywhere, shall take it down and carry it home. Then we
will have marbles for numbers; and they shall play addition games,
and multiplication games, and get the sums for prizes; the ones that
get to the head, you know. Why, you don't understand _objects_,
Luclarion!"

Luclarion had been telling them of the wild little folk of Neighbor
Street, and worse, of Arctic Street. She wanted to do something with
them. She had tried to get them in with gingerbread and popcorn;
they came in fast enough for those; but they would not stay. They
were digging in the gutters and calling names; learning the foul
language of the places into which they were born; chasing and hiding
in alley-ways; filching, if they could, from shops; going off
begging with lies on their lips. It was terrible to see the springs
from which the life of the city depths was fed.

"If you could stop it _there_!" Luclarion said, and said with
reason.

"Will you let me go?" asked Hazel of her mother, in good earnest.

"'Twon't hurt her," put in Luclarion. "Nothing's catching that you
haven't got the seeds of in your own constitution. And so the