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The American Child by Elizabeth McCracken
page 6 of 136 (04%)
wish them to share in the good things of our lives,--our work and our
play. To what amazing lengths we sometimes go in this "doing for" the
children of our circles!

One Saturday afternoon, only a few weeks ago, I saw at the annual
exhibit of the State Board of Health, a man, one of my neighbors, with
his little eight-year old boy. The exhibit consisted of the customary
display of charts and photographs, showing the nature of the year's work
in relation to the milk supply, the water supply, the housing of the
poor, and the prevention of contagious diseases. My neighbor is not a
specialist in any one of these matters; his knowledge is merely that of
an average good citizen. He went from one subject to the other, studying
them. His boy followed close beside him, looking where his father
looked,--if with a lesser interest at the charts, with as great an
intentness at the photographs. As they made their way about the room
given over to the exhibit, they talked, the boy asking questions, the
father endeavoring to answer them.

The small boy caught sight of me as I stood before one of the charts
relating to the prevention of contagious diseases, and ran across the
room to me. "What are _you_ looking at?" he said. "That! It shows how
many people were vaccinated, doesn't it? Come over here and see the
pictures of the calves the doctors get the stuff to vaccinate with
from!"

"Isn't this an odd place for a little boy on a Saturday afternoon?" I
remarked to my neighbor, a little later, when the boy had roamed to the
other side of the room, out of hearing.

"Not at all!" asserted the child's father. "He was inquiring the other
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