A few days since, just after the recent snow-storm, I passed
in the street a little fellow drawing a sled; a little,
rosy-cheeked boy, who was so full of perfect happiness that
his entire face was crinkled into a smile. He made a beautiful
picture. That sled was his only responsibility, and that, along
with the snow, made out for him a perfect heaven. I watched the
lad and wished I were a boy again. It was a foolish wish, and
yet not altogether foolish. There was something exquisite in the
situation which one would have been not only foolish but stupid
not to appreciate. He had no burden. His sled was unloaded, and
slipt along over the frosty pavement almost of its own momentum.
He had no anxieties. The little fellow’s heart is sometimes
bruised, I suppose, but child bruises do not last as long as
older bruises.
But I had not gone many steps past him before I revised my wish,
and thought only how beautiful it would be to have the innocence
of the boy and his simple trust, and along with that the mature
equipment opening out into the vast opportunities that form the
heritage of years that are ripe.--CHARLES H. PARKHURST.
(363)
=Children=--See CRUELTY TO CHILDREN.