And how assiduously they attempt to make as many as they can of the other things we grown-ups make! They imitate our play; and, in a spirit of play, they contrive to copy to its last and least detail our work. If we play golf or tennis, they also play these games. Are we painters of pictures or writers of books, they too aspire to paint or to write! It cannot be denied that we encourage the children in this "endless imitation." We not only have diminutive golf sticks and tennis rackets manufactured for their use as soon as they would play our games; when they show signs of toying with our work, we promptly set about providing them with the proper means to that end. One of our best-known magazines for children devotes every month a considerable number of its pages to stories and poems and drawings contributed by children. Furthermore, it offers even such rewards as we grown-up writers and painters are offered for "available" products. Moreover, the young contributors are instructed in the intricacies of literary and artistic etiquette. They are taught how to prepare manuscripts and drawings for the editorial eye. The "rules" given these children are identical with the regulations governing well-conducted grown-up writers and artists--excepting that the children are commanded to "state age," and "have the contribution submitted indorsed as wholly original!" It is a noteworthy fact that hundreds of children in America send in contributions, month after month, year after year, to this magazine. Even more significant is it that they prepare these contributions with all the conscientious care of grown-up writers or painters to whom writing or painting is the chiefest reality of life. So whole-heartedly do the children play at being what their elders are! [Illustration: THE DEAR DELIGHTS OF PLAYING ALONE] An Italian woman once asked me, "The American children--what do they employ as toys?" I could only reply, "Almost anything; almost everything!" When we are furthest from seeing the toy possibilities of a thing, they see it. I have among my treasures a libation cup and a _ushabti_ figurine--votive offerings from the Temple of Osiris, at Abydos. A short time ago a little boy friend of mine lighted upon them in their safe retreat. "What are these?" he inquired. "They came from Egypt--" I began. "Oh, _really_ and _truly_?" he cried. "_Did_ they come from the Egypt in the poem-- "'Where among the desert sands Some deserted city stands, There I'll come when I'm a man With a camel caravan; And in a corner find the toys Of the old Egyptian boys'?" He spent a happy hour playing with the libation cup and the _ushabti_-- trophies of one of the most remarkable explorations of our era. I did not tell him what they were. He knew concerning them all he needed to know--that they could be "employed as toys." Perhaps the very tiniest of the "old Egyptian boys" had known only this, too.