June Dacey was a frail city girl whose health was such that her parents
feared to send her to the public schools in New York. One September
morning June’s father said to her: “June, how would you like to spend a
year in the country and attend school with your cousins?”
June thought it would be, “Just fine!” and Mr. Dacey was not long in
arranging with his brother in Massachusetts to receive June into his
home and to see her well started in the country school.
All went well until June’s cousin Carrie Dacey began to show signs of
jealousy toward June. The two girls were just of an age, but Carrie was
an unusually vigorous, strong, healthy girl with double the amount of
endurance possessed by June. As a consequence the two girls received
very different treatment by their elders and even in a half unconscious
way by the other children who were, indeed, somewhat overawed by June’s
pretty clothes and refined manners.
“O, yes! of course June can have everything and I can’t have anything,”
said Carrie one day in a fit of petulance. “She has all the nice clothes
and I have to wear this old thing. She can ride to the picnic while I
have to walk. The teacher is always doing things for her and nobody ever
does anything for me. At home it’s just the same way, June gets all the
attention.”
Miss Scott, the teacher, happened to overhear the remark, although it
was not intended for her, and was thereby made conscious of the ill-will
that was springing up between the two girls. She had had no desire to
show partiality in any way toward June but only to protect the frail
girl from too fatiguing sport. Now she said to herself, “This won’t do!
We shall have a tragedy here soon! I must think out some plan to
overcome this feeling between the two cousins.”
It so happened that the children had for their reading lesson “The Story
of the Twins.” The story was full of activity and fun and mischief and
the children liked it. Miss Scott had promised the class that when they
could read it very well they might dramatize it some day.
“You two girls who are just of an age must be our twins,” said Miss
Scott, “the other children may take the other parts. Mary and Jane, come
help me make this crepe paper into costumes for ‘the twins.’ They must
dress just alike.”
The children caught the idea, and, just as Miss Scott intended they
should do, immediately nicknamed the two girls “The Twins.” Miss Scott
strengthened the tendency still further by saying occasionally, in a
playful way, “Will the twins pass the paint boxes for us?” “Will the
twins collect the pencils?”
Carrie was soon quite cured of her jealous complainings. Through
suggestion, the feeling of coöperation and comradeship had been
substituted for the selfish emotion of jealousy, and in thus being
linked together in school duties and sports, in a way, too, that
emphasized the relation of equality, the two children soon became firm
friends.