INNOCENTS ABROAD

Evening Star, Issue 23727, 7 November 1940, Page 16

INNOCENTS ABROAD

ENGLISH CHILDREN IN NEW LAND In the face of a barrage of questions and attentions from the curious, the English children trickling into the United States in the past few months have maintained a solid front of poise, courtesy, and the traditional stiff upper lip. writes Elizabeth R. Duval, in the ‘ New York Times.’ Reporters have been cowed by cool little voices answering alb queries with clipped words that would do credit to a diplomat. (When told that Yale was the American equivalent of Oxford they smiled politely.) Other adults have been put to rout by the docile faces and impeccable manners.

The first refugees to flee England in some 250 years are unlike those from any other country. As might be expected, they seem to regard the whole thing as merely a slight irregularity, which can be easily coped with, simply by hot getting excited. One group, however, temporarily billeted in a huge house on Long Island, has now had several weeks in which to unbend.

To-day its members are a little less formal, more talkative (though never let it be said that an Englishman is voluble), and more like the American idea of a normal child. One, in fact, went so far as to say that right now his most pressing need was an Indian suit.

Contrary to the, general idea, the children in this group are not members of what is acidly referred to these days as the privileged class. They come from English workingmen’s homes, and were rounded up and sent over here at the expense of interested persons. For example, Dennis, who is nine, and his younger sister, Margaret Phyllis, are the children of a man who in peace time was a groundsman on a private golf course. Dennis' looks like a kid on a magazine cover—small nose, blue direct eyes, and a dusting of freckles. Most of the time he is grave and dignified, but at a muttered word from his sidekick John, the son of a London constable, his face breaks up into that familiar look of impending devilment. Being the eldest, he shows a marked sense of responsibility, and even goes so far as to keep an eye on his sister s manners. Once when she was asked something and didn’t hear, he said sharply after a moment’s pause: “ Phyllis, you were asked a question' Phvllis flushed, smiled, apologised, and launched into a full reply. Dennises present ambition is to be in the Air Force when he grows up. John is small, meek, and quiet. But this beatitude is betrayed by a very smart face, and one suspects that he is really a holy terror. He has announced that" he wants to be a “ tough guy. At the moment he is the most expert peas-on-a-knife eater that this writer lias ever seen. He deftly balances about eight on a narrow blade and empties them into his mouth like marbles down a drain. He is also a pretty good construction engineer with a fork. The amount of assorted food that he can pile on the back of this implement is awe-inspiring. He wastes no time with the American nice-nelly-ism of changing the fork from the left to the right hand after cutting. Instead, John proceeds steadily in a rhvthmic, business-like performance of cut, pile, lift (but not far), and gulp. Hardly even time out for chewing. There does, however, seem to be some danger of drowning when he goes into a glass of milk. . Mary, John’s older sister, is eight or nine. There was some difference of opinion over this, with Mary holding out firthlv for the high figure. She has the English strawberry-and-cream complexion. Both Mary and Phyllis want to be babies’ nurses when they grow up, and now their chief ambition is to learn how to swim.