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Entered according to Act of Congress, in June,lß67, by J. W. Burkk & Cos., in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the So. District of Georgia
Yol. I.
PLAYING HOUSEKEEPING.
NE of the most delight-
ful books we kll o w of for
JfL jv; n o|isli story by Mary
U' v
Howitt. It is a history of
the every day life of two chil-
Jk dren, Herbert and Meggy.
One of their favorite amuse
ments was playing at living in a
house. For this purpose they used
a little tool house in a secluded part
of the garden. It had a little sort ol
rustic porch to it, overshadowed by
a flowery acacia, and the whole
front was overrun with ivy and a
Scotch rose. It consisted of two
rooms, the inner one of which had
a little casement window of four
panes. This was the place which ol
all others Herbert and Meggy wish
ed to have for their house, both
rooms were so pleasant. The first
looked out from its door under the
acacia tree, and the other had such
a pretty picturesque window, which
would open and shut, and which
was surrounded with ivy. The chil
dren fancied that the little old wo
man who lived in the wood with her
dog and bird, in one of Trick s fairy
tales, had just such a little room
and such a little window as this.
Nobody can tell how charming it
was to Herbert and Meggy to shut them
selves up in this pretty little house. I hey
fancied a great many charming things
about it which they told to nobody, and
as their father saw that they enjoyed it
so much, he said that it should be theirs,
and that nobody should disturb them
in it.
Oh, how charming it was when the sun
shone through the little window, and the
bright form of the four little panes lay
MACON, GrA., MARCH 21, 1868
on the floor! There was a shelf, not a
high one, but a very broad and strong
one, in the first room, and this they call
ed “up-stairs.” Their mamma lent them
a nice little step-ladder, and this they
placed against the shelf, and it was the
staircase. They set the doll’s cradle on
the shelf, and all such things as made it
look like a bed-room, and here they used
to put the two dolls, Sophia and Alice, to
sleep, while they were busy about their
household work. They found in a lum
ber room a piece of old Indian matting,
with which they covered the floor of the
inner room, and then they put a board
across the first room to divide it into two
parts; and thus they had a hall and a kit
chen, while the inner was a
grand drawing-room. One day their
friend Henry came to see them, and he
put up two little lower shelves for them,
one in each room, and these were chim
ney-pieces. The beautiful kitchen range
which their mamma had given them was
of course put in its place ; a set of little
candlesticks and other things stood
on the mantel-piece; afire was al
ways supposed to be burning in the
grate, and a pot always was on the
fire; the coal-box was filled with
tiny little pieces of coal, and nothing
could be prettier or more complete
than the whole place. They deco
rated their walls with little pictures,
and hung up a smart yellow cord
and tassel for a bell; they hung
some lilac ribbon, 'which had once
trimmed their sister’s bonnet, fes
toon-wise above their window, and
these were their handsome curtains.
They got the gardener to give them
■ome cuttings of evergreens, and
these they set in little pots and
olaced them in the window, which
'ooked, as they thought, most beau
tifully. They invited many people
to go and see them in their nouse,
and nothing could make them hap
pier than having visitors.
It was a favorite amusement to
them to play at having a trouble
some and bad neighbor. They piay
‘ >d that Mrs. Gingham, who had dis
turbed them so much in their other
house, had. like themselves, removed, and
that she now lived just by them in the
melon-bed, and that whenever their backs
were turned she came and put all their
things into disorder. They pretended
t-hatshe had a husband as bad as herself,
and children a great deal worse.
“ Why do you not play that Mrs. Ging
ham is a good useful neighbor?” asked
somebody one day, “ and that she has a
friendly husband and good children?”
No. 38