"Good gracious, child, how dirty you are!" There are some babies who walk hesitatingly forth into the understanding of speech only to hear, "Oh, what dirty little hands!" It must be a disappointment if you have been eagerly listening and listening to find out what your mother meant by the words she spoke.
Indeed, if it were not for tooth brushes, soap, hair brushes, baths, and table manners, parents and children might often have a wonderful time getting to know each other; but these things stand between them until the children are as old as their mothers and fathers, and then generally it is too late. For when you've spent fifteen years, or twelve years anyway, hardly being able to get at your parents except over a rampart of tooth brushes, and shoe blacking, the doors of communication get rusted from disuse. I often wonder children don't turn on us with:
"Now, I don't want to hear you say 'tooth brush' to-day," or, "Any parent that speaks of hand-washing, or hair-brushing, or eating fast, has got to leave the table."
There are, however, a few mothers who are forever wondering what their children are really like. They wonder this so hard that they sometimes even stop talking about baths and going to bed so they can watch. These mothers are forever on the alert to catch some word or sign sent to them from the place where the children live. For the moment parents are out of the way, children's talk is different; their very voices, their words, their looks, all change.
Alice was always snooping on the edge of this place, straining her eyes to see what went on. At night when she tucked the children in she was especially watchful, hoping to surprise a confidence as it scuttled past her. She gathered up stray words they dropped and put them
