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women, came up asa sort of reinforcement. ‘ Did you read the 
notice at the gate?” his wife demanded, 
d the notice! Of course not! Why should I?” 
“ De. you never read notices?”’ I gasped. 
“Not if Ican help it,” said the man; ‘I’m sure I don’t,” 
said one of the women; ‘I never thought of such a thing,” said 
the other 
And thea we all laughed and sat down on some rocks to talk 
the matter over. ‘‘ Now,’ said the man, ‘‘we represent the 
average people. I suppose I have been here a dozen Hines but 
I have never taken the trouble to read one of those notice 
From their good English and their good clothes a ae all 
their good nature, I am sure they were considerably above the 
“average people.” ‘ Well,” I said, “why haven’t you read 
them?” 
“ Too long,” said the man 
“Yes,” said the woman, ‘they are too long; they are a reg- 
ular half-column-in-the-newspaper notice. I can’t imagine my- 
self stopping to read any such thing when there is so much that 
is beautiful to look at. But truly I never would have dreamed 
of touching a flower if I had known that it was against the rules 
of the park. Now if you want to keep your wild flowers, why 
don’t you put up a lot of short notices all over the grounds, 
just a few words that one cannot help reading. Then people 
like us and children would understand.” 
25. Two girls had thirty-six jack-in-the-pulpits. They had 
collected them for their drawing-teacher ; she wanted to use them 
for the lesson the next day. 
. A mother with a baby in her arms was followed by two 
ai girls. The children had their hands full of buttercups. 
One of the guards approached and took away the flowers; “We 
wanted to bring them to the teacher,” wailed the little sis 
27. A little boy of nine years was laboring hard in his en- 
deavor to break a branch of dogwood. “Oh, little boy,” I 
cried ‘ you mustn’t break any branches.”’ 
“It is for my teacher,” said the little boy proudly. 
“But,” said I impressively, “ it is expressly prohibited.” 
