OUR ISHMAEL 847
you ; but if they are unattainable, I beg you to believe that you can do good and great work without them. Go into one of the congested spots in your city where these boys live ; hire a room, accessible to the street, and where no one will be dis- turbed by noise in the evening. Make this room warm and light ; this is the first requisite. How many times have I heard the expression fervently uttered by blue lips as the small, shivering lads came running in out of the winter night ; " Gee, it's warm ! Ain't dis bully ? "
Have plenty of cheap, stout tables and chairs. Cover the walls with pictures ; the tables with books, magazines, and illustrated papers. These may be second-hand, given by people who have read them and are glad to give them away, if you cannot afford to have new ones. There are many inexpensive games that interest boys; I have found that checkers never palls, but will be taken up, evening after evening, with unfailing zest. Keep a corner where the smaller boys can play " mibs." As soon as you can, put a punching-bag in another corner. Bring as many bright, cultured, and interesting people to meet the boys as you can persuade to come. Nothing will please the boys better, and nothing will do them more good. For yourself, do not be too effusive; do not smile perfunctorily, nor affect anything you do not really feel. Children always detect the sham, and these children resent it openly. Above all things, don't be preachy- preachy ; don't point the moral ; don't adorn the tale with the too garishly apt personal application. Don't be intrusive in your desire to be helpful ; don't plan their games for them, to the minutest detail. Never mind about teaching them any- thing at first; it is not teaching they need, but socializing humanizing.
A piano is a most excellent thing to have ; and easy to obtain for this purpose in any city. I have found dealers ever willing to contribute not a Steinway grand perhaps, but an instrument upon which dance music and popular songs may be played sufficiently well. If you are fortunate enough to be able to keep a pretty, gentle young lady on the piano stool three hours at a stretch, be sure the boys will throng around her until you will fear for her life.
