A PLAY TIME LADY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 133, 28 February 1908, Page 3

A PLAY TIME LADY.

A pretty story is told in the "Ladies' Homo Journal"'of a young girl, who seemed to bo fitted for 110 business whatever; .She • could not play or .sing well enough to leach,' she was too frail to"go'down town to work, ;and- it soemed as if fate' had cruelly hampered her by'making it necessary for her to work without giving her any special capacity. She was just:a,'merry,vsweet-tempered child .of eighteen, liyiug'.with a. widowed mother who was -delicate and had barely enough incomo to keep tho two comfortable. The :£irl was determined'to do something. She lived .on an unfashionable street in a big, old-fashioned house,-the lovely old garden of which backed up to a row of flamboyant city flats. • Tho apartments, steam-heated and modern to a-degree,■ were 011 a good street, but thero.was scarce an. inch of green-, to each one, and the small yard there was was always: full of drying clothes, for somebody in tho-flats washed every day. How enviously: tho .littlo flat-children gazed into the old garden 1 There ■■.'■wasn't, a marketable .flower.,in it. , • . ■ Tho . little eighteen-year-old had, had wild ; ideas of selling flowers to . earn money, but there' .wore only hollyhocks and monster, sunflowers, goldenglow and larkspurs, snapr dragon, and yards and. yards of wild cucumber, which grew in a' regular- tangle over, a sandpile in one corner where sho had played hajipily :when" a child.- - . : ' ~.. An acquaintance who ■ was earning thirty shillings a - week down town, and - paying 245. for board and carfare, said, with galling superiority, one day: "Really I don't seo what you'll ever do to earn a.living! -You ;don't seem to be in the least a business girl. You'ro such a, child! Your only specialty is playing with : children. It's a pity you haven't six I"

"I think I'll borrow some," said her hearer, and into her mind an idea sprang, full-fledged. Tho next Monday morning six littlo tots in -six different apartments re-' ceived • a tiny littlo letter in the morning mail, w-hich, -en .being ,opened, read:

1 ■ "The Sandpilo -Lady- requests your company on Monday ; morning from ' nino until' twelve o'clock. Y , . "Ginghams.-.'-'5442 'Elderberry .. ;!■ Court.'" - 'i - • Nobody knew quite "what it'meant, but young and old wero determined to find; out; Six" expectant, youngsters- appeared at . the garden, shovels 'and. pails •in hand. Six •blissful mothors attended to the housework incident to a flat with oho maid on washday, without the woes of childhood .'being-added thereunto. Six happy children frisked and frolicked, ne, .seven, for tho Sandpilo Lady .tvas-tho biggest child of all. : That was but tho beginning,-as;sho had hoped/itwould bo, of * a clientele of small fry. Morning and afternoon sho entertained ten or a dozen children and earned from £2 to £3 a. week. On rainy/days tho big, old attic was infested with the youngsters, different ones coming on different days.;.-}:,Tho mothers rejoiced at the, happy,babies'"and at' i-tho work they themselves :could accomplish not : tho worst of tho situation being: that mother and children wero rejoiced to bo together again when tho' prodigals roturned. .There never was tho least attempt to, tca'ch tho .children'anything,' so; that" tho kinder- : garten was not infringed upon, : but . much was learned nevertheless, and tho dainty ,little lady-shed culture and refinement about . hgr.. Imagination was , .cultivated and .his r "tory'was imbibed unconsciously. ' One small boy played " Waterloo,-.in the r;sandpilo .with ..'spools for soldiers,'another rccitcd "Horatius .at the Bridge," with blocks for fcho bridpo ,'iuid a toy hatchet to cut it down, while I'rinco Charlie, hiding in the heather,'was a , sceiio daily enacted and scarcely less a. favourite than "Washington ' -'Crossing ' tho Delaware," which river, ; in miniature, gurgled gently through tho sandpile to the great joy, of tho small Boys. Girls and boys played te-i ..getlier, all smiled upon by tho' Sandpile Lady. ' ;