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LITTLE ALIENS

by

MYRA KELLY

Author of "Little Citizens," "Wards of Liberty,"
"The Golden Season," Etc., Etc.

Illustrated


[Illustration: Together they retrieved it]







New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1910

Copyright, 1910, by
Charles Scribner's Sons

Published April, 1910

[Decoration]




   To
   D. M. R.




CONTENTS


                                  PAGE

   "EVERY GOOSE A SWAN"              1

   "GAMES IN GARDENS"               25

   "A BRAND FROM THE BURNING"       63

   FRIENDS                         107

   THE MAGIC CAPE                  143

   "BAILEY'S BABIES"               163

   "THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES"         195

   THE ETIQUETTE OF YETTA          227

   A BENT TWIG                     261




ILLUSTRATIONS


   Together they retrieved it                           _Frontispiece_

                                                                FACING
                                                                 PAGE

   "I guess games in gardens ain't so awful healthy for
       somebody," said Yetta                                        32

   "I never in my world seen how they all makes"                    60

   "I must refuse to translate it to you"                           70

   She staggered back into a chair, fortunately of heavy
       architecture, and stared at the apparition before her       140

   Patrick was making discipline impossible                        178

   "What you think we got to our house?"                           198

   Rosie threw herself into a very ecstasy of her art              246




"EVERY GOOSE A SWAN"


An ideal is like a golden pheasant. As soon as the hunter comes up with
one he kills it in more or less bloody fashion, tears its feathers off,
absorbs what he can of it, and then sets out, refreshed, in pursuit of
another. Or if, being a tender-hearted hunter, he tries to keep it in a
cage to tame it, to teach it, to show it to his friends, it very soon
loses its original character so that beholders disparagingly exclaim:
"Why, it's only a little brown hen! Hardly worth the trouble of
hunting."

But among the pheasant and the trout of the ideal hunting-fields the
true relation between home and school flits ever along the horizon, a
very sea-serpent. Every one has heard of it. Some have pursued it. Some
even vow they have seen it. Almost any one is ready to describe it.
Expeditions have gone forth in search of it, and have come back
empty-handed or with the haziest of kodak films. And the most
conservative of insurance companies would consider it a safe "risk."

In every-day and ordinary conditions this relation between home and
school is really a question of mother and teacher, with the child as its
stamping-ground. Two very busy women, indifferent, hostile, or strangers
to each other, are engaged in the formulated and unformulated education
of the child. To the mother this child is her own particular Mary or
Peter. To the teacher it is the whole generation, of which Peter and
Mary are such tiny parts.

The ideal teacher is as wise as Solomon, as impartial as the telephone
directory, as untiring as a steam