Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 3.djvu/110

 for each. The lullaby-flute began to play, weary eyelids to close, and soon a hundred happy little souls lay fast asleep in the Children's Home.

For a long time the old lady let her family do nothing but enjoy themselves. Every morning they were led out into the meadow like a flock of lambs, there to frisk all day with their healthful playmates, sun and air, green grass, and exercise, for, being a wise woman, she left them to the magic of a better nurse than herself, and Nature, the dear god-mother of the world, did her work so well that soon no one would have known the rosy, happy troop for the forlorn little creatures who had come there.

Then the old lady was satisfied, and said to herself,—

"Now they may work a little, else they will learn to love idleness. What shall I give them to do that will employ their hands, make them happy, and be of use to others?"

Now, like many other excellent old ladies, the god-mother had a pet idea, and it was pinafores. In her day all children wore them, were simply dressed, healthy, gay, and good. At the present