106 WHEAT AND WOMAN 



into the spirit of the thing.^ The dispensation of 

 gifts was rather a solemn and silent proceeding, and 

 when it was all over there were no games ! No 

 games for those good-natured little martyrs who had 

 toiled for weeks towards the programme and who, 

 one could see, had to screw up the courage of war 

 to deliver their lines and play their part to the audi- 

 ence. One simply longed to clear away those chairs 

 and start a rollicking game of Musical Chairs or 

 Blindman's Buff, Nuts in May, Kiss in the Ring, 

 or Puss in the Corner, and make that prim town hall 

 ring with the mirth of little children. Possibly 

 the lack of laughter in Canadian children is owing 

 to the fact that nurses, governesses, and other suit- 

 able guardians, whose most important business in 

 life is to make children happy, are very hard to find 

 in Canada. The children share the life of the 

 grown-up members of the family and overworked 

 mothers, only too thankful for their skilful aid 

 in the tasks of the daily round, are apt to forget 

 that in an age when the principal and by no means 

 contemptible cry of the world is to be amused, 

 the fun-loving side of a child's nature will make 

 a wonderful return for care and kindness wisely 

 bestowed. True, the reason may lie in the deeper 

 cause that the Canadian child is born of endurance. 

 The " land of promise " has been won by those 

 who held out against the odds, those who broke 

 the trail of a new country and dug the founda- 

 tions of its industrial development in the teeth 

 of the north-west wind. When in digging through 

 many feet of snow to find my well after a fierce 

 blizzard from the west had successfully concealed 

 it from woman and beast, I began to understand 



