A chorus of voices informed him that the "nasty Senators wouldn't let them play any more because they messed up the grounds"; and then again from the throng of little ones confronting the President there arose fresh outbursts of grief and indignation. [Illustration: Lester Ralph. "GOING TO MR. PRESIDENT'S."] "Never you mind, children," said President Hayes soothingly. "You may come right up to my house and play in my back yard." Then the mourning was turned to rejoicing. Every child knew that in all the city of Washington there was not so wonderful a "back yard" as that which belonged to the White House. Its beautifully kept slopes were ideal places for "egg-rolling," and then there was the great fountain in the middle of the lawn! So when the President's carriage started to return to the White House, it was followed by several hundred boys and girls swinging their egg-baskets, and singing and shouting out their gratitude to the President of the United States, who was going to let them play in his garden. I doubt if ever an American President had an escort of which he had such cause to feel proud as that which accompanied President Hayes to the White House gates on that memorable Easter Monday. [Illustration: Lester Ralph. ON THE WAY TO THE WHITE HOUSE.] Outside the gates they were kept waiting for about an hour, while the President gave his hurried instructions to the gardeners to put the place in readiness. At eleven o'clock the gates swung open, and from that time till six o'clock the children rolled their eggs. Ever since then Washington children have gone regularly every Easter Monday to play in the President's "back yard," each of President Hayes's successors having kept up the custom of inserting in the Washington papers each year an invitation to all the children residents of the town to spend the day rolling eggs on the lawn. In President Hayes's time his own children joined in the sport, and during the last term of President Cleveland the President's little girls, who were considered too young to roll eggs with the elder children, were kept on the back portico with their mother or their nurse, where they could watch the progress of the games.