THE CHILD—ITS PLEASURES
[Sidenote: Love and Happiness.]
What a happiness it is that in the memories of most people the joys
of childhood so far exceed its griefs. Two of the most powerful
agents for good in the life of a child are love and happiness, and it
may be confidently assumed that where there is an abundance of the
former the existence of the latter is assured.
It may happily be asserted that it has been the sad lot of few of
those who read these lines to have known an unloved childhood. To
this may be ascribed the happy recollections of most who look back
upon their earliest years.
But in this chapter some attempt will be made to examine certain
special pleasures rather than to generalise as to the atmosphere of
happiness in which alone a child will really thrive.
[Sidenote: No Stereotyped Rule.]
While happiness is necessary for all children, those who have most
closely studied child life will agree that the old saying “_Quot
homines tot sententiæ_” may well be applied to the great variety of
ways in which this happiness is sought. It is impossible to treat all
children alike, or to lay down any general rule. A little girl will
find her chief delight in dogs and horses, while her brother steals
away to play with dolls. Two small boys will go out into the garden,
and, while one is keen to learn any sort of manly game, the other
stands about cold and listless, bored to death by the mere sight of
bat or ball.
[Sidenote: Failure of Compulsory Pleasures.]
Nothing is less likely to produce happiness than to attempt to
_force_ little children to amuse themselves in any set way. How many
people have been disappointed by their efforts in this direction!
A “recreation” ground has perhaps been provided by some charitable
person at great expense. Ten to one it will be deserted by the little
ones for whom it was primarily intended and given over to the tender
mercies of lads and lasses in their “teens.” The _small_ children
find nothing left to their imagination, and infinitely prefer some
dirty, and, to adult eyes, disadvantageous corner.
There was just such a case in a large northern town. The recreation
ground was opened with pomp, and was elaborately fitted with swings,
parallel bars, etc. For a week or two a few children made efforts to
amuse themselves there, but it was quickly deserted. In the immediate
neighbourhood were sundry patches of ground where no houses had as
yet been built, and on which lay fascinating heaps of brick bats
and refuse. Needless to say these offered far greater attractions
than the new and orderly playground. Small children do not care to
play “to order.” They have enough of that during school hours. When
they get a bit older they will be willing enough to join in games on
specified grounds and governed by codes of rules, but while they are
little they like to find their own playgrounds and invent their own
games.
[Sidenote: A Game in a Stackyard.]
Memory brings a vision of two children, one a little girl with soft
dark hair and big black eyes, who is dressed in a blue and white
cotton frock, and a big white straw hat; the other a sturdy, but
commonplace boy, in grey knickerbockers, a holland blouse, with a
broad black leather belt, and a flannel cap. They are about the
same age, neither of them being yet seven, and they are playing in
a stack-yard. It is not the stacks that are the attraction, for
just now there are none there, but for all that it is a glorious
playground. In the first place, it is well out of the way of the
grown-up people, and in the next place, though there are no stacks,
there are the stone supports on which they once stood. What excellent
tables they make, these old grey upright blocks, of which the flat
round tops project like real tables, and are practically useful in
preventing rats and mice from climbing up. But there is something
else which has drawn the children to that spot, for all about in the
yard there is to be found a tall plant with a quantity of red seed,
which must, I fancy, be some kind of sorrel. It is delicious to draw
your hand up the stalk and bring it away full of this seed, and that
is what these children are busy doing.
Next they put it in a heap on a slate which they have discovered, and
then search for pieces of brick and flat stone, which are piled on
the top. In this way a certain quantity of the seed is compressed,
and called a cheese, which is deposited with ceremony upon one of the
stone tables.
The little girl has been the leader throughout; she has decided which
plants were ripe enough to be stripped, how much seed was necessary
to form a cheese, and upon which of the stones the feast should be
spread. The boy has been her obedient servant, a position of things
which reaches its climax when the little lady suddenly states that
she doesn’t like cheese, and orders him to eat it all up!
This is a vision that has come from time to time for more than forty
years, and few playgrounds have seemed so attractive.
[Sidenote: The Old Tree in the Garden.]
Then there is the old tree of the garden. Who does not love the
memory of the games played beneath it, and the seats it afforded
among its boughs? Maybe it was a mulberry, or merely an ancient
laurel. Playgrounds may be found in and under both. In another case
it was a mighty yew, noted in the annals of the county. A few feet up
upon its massive stem, the children had special seats, and woe betide
intruders caught trespassing! Beneath it was a long bench, of which
the supports were obviously at one time a part of one of the great
boughs, while the seat had in the distant ages been green.
[Sidenote: Playing at Shop.]
What feasts were spread upon this seat—what shops were kept with this
for the counter! There is a dust that forms beneath old yews, and
consists of the dead and crumbled petals. What splendid stuff it is
to play with! It can be sold as snuff, or almost anything, and it
pours out of a teapot as easily as water. But there is no need to say
more; everyone can remember the invented games, and the best-loved
haunts of their childhood.
[Sidenote: A Whitby Playground.]
One more playground of a thoroughly unconventional character may well
be mentioned here. It is just where the base of one of the Whitby
piers starts from the end of a narrow street or passage. The huge
stones worn and rounded at their edge make a couple of steps down to
the water’s edge, but steps so big that, if you are still a small
boy, they compel you to sit down and slide and scramble, holding on
as best you may, till you have reached the bottom. It is great fun
to watch the children descending by their various methods. Big boys
(and girls too) manage it easily, laughing and shouting as they bump
their way down. But with the little ones it is different. A girl
arrives, with a baby wrapped up in a shawl; this requires management:
baby is set down on the top step, and told to stay quite still, then
away slides the small nurse on to the intermediate resting-place some
three or four feet below; then a pair of arms are stretched up, and
baby struggles into them with a chuckle of satisfaction, and is once
more deposited, while the elder sister springs down on to the soft
wet sand, and next minute baby, too, is safe in the desired corner.
This is what it practically is, this desirable playground, just a
corner in the harbour laid bare at low tide, and having the pier on
its one side, and the walls of the old town on the other. How lovely
those old walls were! Looking right up one sees the ends projecting
above the gables of red-tiled roofs, while below are the grey
walls—no, not grey, though many seem so at first sight, but yellow,
blue, red, green—every colour, in fact, that stones will take, when
long exposed to sea and weather. Then at the bottom just above the
sand runs a long wide course of stones that are covered by every
tide, and have in consequence become clothed with a fringe of brown
and green and golden seaweed.
There are small windows here and there, high up in the walls, and
now and again a sheet or a towel is hung out to dry, a picturesque
object enough against a mass of building; and from above the wall of
a yard a number of poles, leaning in the corner, project and break
the monotony of the surface.
It lies right inside the harbour, and every time the tide goes down
it leaves a certain quantity of semi-decomposed objects to scent the
atmosphere of this special spot.
Then again, what is far worse, there are small square openings here
and there in the wall and from these there trickle continuously the
contents of many washtubs and slop-pails. Yet here it is that a
group of children come whenever the tide allows, to play their quiet
games—quiet, for they never run about or make much noise, but seem
happiest crawling on hands and knees, or squatting in a circle and
playing with the garbage and refuse which has stranded there.
[Sidenote: Treasure Trove.]
This is doubtless the attraction; the beauties of the scene evidently
never occur to them at all, the evil smells affect them not. But
there are new playthings there continually. As the water recedes
fresh treasures day by day are left upon the shiny floor—half sand,
half mud—of their playground. What opportunities for their invention
and imagination! Yesterday there were two small dead crabs, a broken
saucer, and an empty sardine box; to-day’s chief items are the wicker
end of a worn-out lobster-pot, a bit of rope, and a whole quantity
of mussel shells which have been thrown away after the baiting of a
long line. What endless games are played with these materials! First
of all the shells are pushed into the sand squares, making little
gardens, which are duly furnished with bits of green seaweed. To
them comes a small market woman carrying the fragment of wicker-work
in which she places the green stuff she purchases and pays for with
pebbles, the bit of rope being used to sling the laden basket on her
bent back, as she walks off to market under the heavy load.
[Sidenote: Another Game of Shop.]
Then the shells are hurriedly gathered up, and baby is established
with her back against the wall, and in front of her the total
accumulation of odds and ends is arranged in lots, each one marked
off by a line drawn in the sand, and then the children come to buy
at baby’s shop—a matter of huge delight to the shopkeeper, who
distributes her goods rashly and impulsively, and is evidently bored
at being made to receive payment!
But an end comes at last: a voice is heard shouting, baby is lifted
up on to the first step again, and all the little bare legs and
ruddy feet go scampering off to tea!
[Sidenote: Playing at Being Grown Up.]
It would be easy enough to give many more examples than these two or
three, but they will be sufficient to illustrate the preference of
little children of all and every class for unconventional playgrounds
and games proceeding from their own vivid imaginations. Imagination
supplies the keynote to so many of the pleasures of children. How
greatly, for instance, they delight in playing at being grown up!
Nothing gives them keener pleasure than being treated like their
elders. It is partly the importance of it, but largely also the
exercise of imagination and an appreciation (duly suppressed) of the
fun of the situation.
A few years ago it fell to the lot of the writer to witness the joys
of two very small people who came by themselves (oh! the importance
of it) upon a regular visit.
[Sidenote: A Visit from Two Children.]
They were some six and seven years old, and a most reserved and
old-fashioned little couple in their ways. The elder, Reggie, was
singularly quiet and thoughtful. His face, of considerable beauty
of feature, with large grey eyes, wore ordinarily an expression of
solemnity, if not of melancholy, and it required an intimacy of some
considerable standing to obtain more than monosyllabic replies in his
high but very gentle voice.
His companion was a little sister properly called Marjorie, but who
had hardly yet outgrown “Baby.” Such an upright, delicate dimpled,
flower of a child, with the same big eyes and curling lashes as her
brother, but with a reserve far more easily overcome, and a much
greater readiness to break into smiles or even indulge in romps. She
completely “mothered” Reggie, and her anxiety that he should do the
right thing, and her little quick orders to him, were most amusing.
Their hostess met them a few days before their visit, and their
excitement about it all was intense.
“What luggage shall you bring?”
“Oh! just a hat-box or two!”
“It’s all arranged about our visit to you. I do so love arranging
things. Couldn’t we have some more arrangements?”
This, of course, Baby. So every conceivable thing was “arranged,” and
every minute of the two days planned out. Their hostess told them she
should expect them to bring lots of things in their luggage.
“Oh!” said Baby, “I shall bring my tea-gown. And what shall _you_
wear?”
The day arrived, and they were met at the station.
“Well, what luggage have you brought?”
“Twelve hat-boxes,” promptly replied Reggie with a flicker of humour
just lighting up his face. One turned up, and was found to contain
the entire clothing, etc., of the pair. This vast piece of luggage
was put in Baby’s room, and then came the request that they might be
allowed to unpack for themselves. Reggie was quickly hurried into his
own room with his tiny pile of belongings, and then Baby began to
unpack hers. She was shown a large wardrobe, as well as a good-sized
chest of drawers, and evidently felt that it would be _infra dig._
not to use them both, so, after putting one wee garment in one drawer
and one in another till each held something, she gravely took the
little bag which held her shoes and hung it up in solitary grandeur
in the wardrobe!
The extreme politeness and consideration of these little visitors
were continually coming out. Baby was asked whether she would like a
room to herself or a sofa in her hostess’s room.
“You see, Aunt E., I don’t know what to say,” was the reply. On being
pressed further, she said, “Well, I was thinking about the beds! It
seems a good deal of trouble just for us. You see, they are big beds.”
Reggie, too, was just as anxious to consider others. “If it isn’t too
much trouble,” he said, on being asked whether something should be
brought him. “I’m afraid when we are gone you will say ‘bother those
troublesome children’!”
He was just as attentive, too, to his sister, buttoning her little
petticoat for her and anything she couldn’t manage for herself.
The whole of the proceedings described so far were practically part
of a charade or play. The children were for these two days grown-up
people, and being endowed with an extra allowance of imagination,
played their part in every detail.
Not that they could keep it up quite all the time! There were games
at hide-and-seek that entirely dispelled illusion for a while. Then
there were visits to the poultry yard and animals, when it was
impossible to put such restraint upon one’s feelings of surprise and
delight as to appear properly blasé and grown up. For instance, when
Baby suddenly discovered a large field-spider, there was a scream of
astonishment as she exclaimed, “Oh, Aunt E., here’s a thing with a
lot of legs and a dot in the miggle!” And again, in the poultry yard,
it was scarcely in keeping with the part of a lady who had arrived at
years of discretion to say, “How I should like to lay in those nice
lickle nests!”
[Sidenote: The Children Leave.]
But on the whole these two little people carried out their intention
of paying a real grown-up visit with perfect success up to the
very moment when they were once more in the train by themselves on
their return journey of some six miles, each one grasping firmly
their half-ticket, and the last glimpse we had was of Reggie gravely
lifting his little straw hat, as the train steamed out of the
station. There is all the difference in the world between this sort
of playing at being grown up, and the assumption of airs and graces
which some children display. The one is real pleasure, the other the
merest mockery. Children who are no sooner out of the nursery than
they ape their elders in an insatiable desire for a succession of
smart clothes and evening parties are seldom happy children. Those
who care for their little ones and want to fill their early years
with real pleasures will take care to avoid the causes which produce
children such as these.
It may perhaps be said that the main factors are two.
[Sidenote: Modern Defiance of Authority.]
If children be allowed to absorb the spirit that is pervading the
world at the present day—the spirit of revolt against all authority,
the notion, that is, that everyone is to do exactly as he or she
chooses—that will of itself bring about a state of mind which is
destructive of real happiness. Notions such as these are quickly
picked up, and parents who themselves set all rules and authority at
defiance cannot expect their children to submit to control.
[Sidenote: Self-Conscious Jealous Children.]
Then there is a second cause which is too often at work, and which
does a great deal towards turning some children into disagreeable
and discontented young folk. When people are continually trying to
emulate if not excel their neighbours in appearance and in the
entertainments they provide, children are quick enough to take their
cue from what they see and overhear, with the result that they are
miserable if they think their frocks are less fashionable than their
neighbours’, and are rude and discontented if at one party they do
not get as handsome presents as at some other.
This is all wrong, and distinctly diminishes the pleasure that these
children might otherwise enjoy.
[Sidenote: Desirability of Simpler Children’s Parties.]
It would without doubt add enormously to the real happiness of
children if a league could be formed of all parents who should be
bound to limit children’s parties within certain specified bounds of
simplicity and within certain reasonably early hours.
But this is by the way. It is pleasanter to turn for another minute
or two to speak of the pleasures childlike children find in the
simple joys that lie around their path.
[Sidenote: Natural Pleasures the Most Enjoyed.]
There can be no doubt that the more natural the employment or
amusement the greater the pleasure. A little girl is given a tiny
dustpan and allowed to sweep the carpet, or she has a drawer full of
odds and ends and is asked to sort and arrange them. She will spend
an entire morning in such an occupation with the keenest pleasure,
and if anyone who has watched her should also see her when dressed up
at some “smart” party that same evening there would be no doubt in
the mind of the onlooker as to which brought most real happiness to
the child.
[Sidenote: Story-telling.]
One of the greatest delights that can be afforded to children must
come in for a word of mention. Who does not remember the story-teller
of his or her childhood? Perhaps it was “father,” who when he came
in at tea time would let the whole family swarm on and about his
arm-chair, and would tell another bit of the thrilling tale which
he always broke off each evening at the very most exciting point.
Or sometimes it would be one of the bigger children, gifted with an
extraordinary power of calling up robbers and demons, who enthralled
an audience by the narration of horrors which stimulated their
imagination and made them feel deliciously “creepy.” No such things
as “chestnuts” exist for children. The oftener the story has been
told the better they like it, and never hesitate to choose an old
favourite before a brand new tale.
But this chapter is already becoming too long. It would be easy to
enumerate numberless simple amusements which bring real pleasure to
children. But the same moral can be drawn in every case. The simpler
and more natural the occupation the greater the pleasure. Do not
all children revel in playing with the earth and water that lie
about their feet? Whether they are the lucky ones who can build sand
castles and let the sea-water fill the moats, or whether they can
only play in the gutter by their door, they are ten times happier
in such pleasures as these than in any grander or more elaborate
amusements. To the recognition of this fact those who plan children’s
pleasures will owe their chief success.