8o Life and Sport on the Pacific Slope 



skirl of the pipes at a distance has been known, I 

 believe, to please some persons with Scotch blood 

 in their veins, but the wildest pibroch ever played 

 in Highland glen was sweet melody compared to 

 the strains produced by this urchin. The women 

 glared at him, but he played on, delighted with 

 himself and his toy. His mother was present, un- 

 protesting. Presently he flung down the pipes, 

 walked to the piano, opened it, sat down, and began 

 to hammer the keys with his feet. The mother 

 smiled fatuously. I rose up and approached the 

 child. " You play very nicely with your feet," I 

 ventured to say, as I lifted him from the stool, " but 

 some of these ladies are suffering with headache, 

 and your music distresses them. Eun away, like a 

 good boy, and don't come back again." 



The child stared at me and obeyed. The mother 

 was furious. Had I been Herod the Great, red- 

 handed after the slaughter of the Innocents, she 

 could not have looked more indignant or reproach- 

 ful. I was interfering with the sacred rights of the 

 American child to do what he pleased, where he 

 pleased, and when he pleased. 



In the East — I am glad to say — Fashion has 

 ordained that the children of the well-to-do shall 

 be quietly dressed, soft-voiced, polite, and consider- 

 ate. They flaunt no absurd silks and satins, they 

 wear no jewellery, they play neither the piano nor 

 the fool — in public. 



In the West it is otherwise. 



South of Point Concepcion, the children suffer 

 from the effect of a climate ill-adapted to the de- 



