The Child at Play : Part 1

The American Child
by Elizabeth McCracken

(Page 3 of 13)

Not long ago I happened to receive in the same mail three books on home games, written by three different American authors, and issued by three separate publishing-houses. In most respects the books were dissimilar; but in one interesting particular they were all alike: the games in them were so designed that, though children alone could play them well, children and grown-ups together could play them better. No one of the several authors suggested that he had any such theory in mind when preparing his book; each one simply took it for granted that his "home games" would be played by the entire household. Would not any of us in America, writing a book of this description, proceed from precisely the same starting-point?

We all recollect the extreme amazement in the Castle of Dorincourt occasioned by the sight of the Earl playing a "home game" with Little Lord Fauntleroy. No American grandfather thus engaged would cause the least ripple of surprise. Little Lord Fauntleroy, we recall, had been born in America, and had lived the whole ten years of his life with Americans. He had acquired the habit, so characteristic of the children of our Nation, of including his elders in his games. Quite naturally, on his first day at the Castle, he said to the Earl, "My new game - wouldn't you like to play it with me, grandfather?" The Earl, we remember, was astonished. He had never been in America!

American grown-ups experience no astonishment when children invite them to participate in their play. We are accustomed to such invitations. To our ready acceptance of them the children are no less used. "Will you play with us?" they ask with engaging confidence. "Of course we will!" we find ourselves cordially responding.

I chanced, not a great while ago, to be ill in a hospital on Christmas Day. Toward the middle of the morning, during the "hours for visitors," I heard a faint knock at my door.

Before I could answer it the door opened, and a little girl, her arms full of toys, softly entered.

"Did you say 'Come in'?" she inquired.

Without waiting for a reply, she carefully deposited her toys on the nurse's cot near her. Then, closing the door, she came and stood beside my bed, and gazed at me in friendly silence.

"Merry Christmas!" I said.

"Oh, Merry Christmas!" she returned, formally, dropping a courtesy.

She was a sturdy, rosy-cheeked child, and, though wearing a fluffy white dress and slippers, she looked as children only look after a walk in a frosty wind. Clearly, she was not a patient.

"Whose little girl are you?" I asked.

"Papa's and mamma's," she said promptly.

"Where are they?" I next interrogated.

"In papa's room - down the hall, around the corner. Papa is sick; only, he's better now, and will be all well soon. And mamma and I came to see him, with what Santa Claus brought us."

"I see," I commented. "And these are the things Santa Claus brought you?" I added, indicating the toys on the cot. "You have come, now, to show them to me?"

Her face fell a bit. "I came to play at them with you," she said. "Your nurse thought maybe you'd like to, for a while. Are you too sick to play?" she continued, anxiously; "or too tired, or too busy?"

How seldom are any of us too sick to play; or too tired, or too busy! "I am not," I assured my small caller. "I should enjoy playing. What shall we begin with?" I supplemented, glancing again toward the toy-bestrewn cot.

"Oh, there are ever so many things!" the little girl said. "But," she went on hesitatingly, "your things - perhaps you'd like - might I look at them first?"

Most evident among these things of mine was a small tree, bedizened, after the German fashion, with gilded nuts, fantastically shaped candies, and numerous tiny boxes, gayly tied with tinsel ribbons. "What's in the boxes - presents or jokes?" the little girl questioned. "Have you looked?"

"I hadn't got that far, when you came," I told her; "but I rather think - jokes."

"I'd want to know" she suggested.

When I bade her examine them for me, she said: "Let's play I am Santa Claus and you are a little girl. I'll hand you the boxes, and you open them."

We did this, with much mutual enjoyment. The boxes, to my amusement and her delight, contained miniature pewter dogs and cats and dolls and dishes. "Why," my little companion exclaimed, "they aren't jokes; they are real presents! They will be just right to have when little children come to see you!"