openly displayed, and the infants are zealous to warn one another. A
rider and his horse are called briefly "a norseback."

Children, who see more things than they have names for, show a fine
courage in taking any words that seem likely to serve them, without
wasting time in asking for the word in use. This enterprise is most
active at three and four years, when children have more than they can
say. So a child of those years running to pick up horse-chestnuts, for
him a new species, calls after his mother a full description of what he
has found, naming the things indifferently "dough-nuts" and "cocoa-nuts."
And another, having an anecdote to tell concerning the Thames and a
little brook that joins it near the house, calls the first the "front-
sea" and the second the "back-sea." There is no intention of taking
liberties with the names of things--only a cheerful resolve to go on in
spite of obstacles. It is such a spirit of liberty as most of us have
felt when we have dreamt of improvising a song or improvising a dance.
The child improvises with such means as he has.

This is, of course, at the very early ages. A little later--at eight or
nine--there is a very clear-headed sense of the value of words. So that
a little girl of that age, told that she may buy some fruit, and wishing
to know her limits in spending, asks, "What mustn't it be more than?" For
a child, who has not the word "maximum" at hand, nothing could be more
precise and concise. Still later, there is a sweet brevity that looks
almost like conscious expression, as when a boy writes from his first
boarding school: "Whenever I can't stop laughing I have only to think of
home."

Infinitely different as children are, they differ in nothing more than in
the degree of generosity. The most sensitive of children is a little gay