children would explain Old Mother Hubbard or the Old
Woman who Lived in her Shoe, by seeing the illustrations.

Constructing one he repeated a verse somewhat like the following:

Alone the fisherman sat,
In his boat by the river's brink,
In the chill and cold and snow,
To fish, and fish, and think.

Then he turned over to two on opposite pages, and as he
constructed them he repeated in turn:

In a stream ten thousand li in length
He bathes his feet at night,


While on a mount he waves his arms,
Ten thousand feet in height.


The ten thousand li in one couplet corresponds to the
ten thousand feet in the other, while the bathing of the
feet corresponds to the waving of the arms. Couplets of
this kind are always attractive to the Chinese child as well
as to the scholar, and poems and essays are replete with
such constructions.

The child enjoyed making the pictures. I tried to make
one, but found it very difficult. I was not familiar with the