A MAY POLE PARTY FOR CHILDREN

One teacher planned a very happy May party for her little boy and girl pupils.  There was no chance to set up a big May pole out-of-doors for the children to wind, but her idea turned out to be more original and maybe even more jolly.

There were eighteen children included in the party, which was held in the park.  On arriving, each child was given a little peaked paper cap of bright colored tissue paper.  The boys liked these as well as the girls did, although they found them harder to keep in place on their heads.  As soon as the children had donned their caps, three of the tallest children were appointed to “help teacher.”  This helping consisted in marching proudly out from behind a screen of bushes, carrying three gay little May poles, decked with flowers and colored paper streamers.  They had been made by swinging a barrel hoop from a broomstick handle, by means of a number of ribbon-like strips of cloth.  Of course the hoops were wound with the cloth, and besides that were trimmed with apple blossoms and lilacs.

From the rim of each hoop the cloth strips hung straight down for two or three feet.  The colors on the May pole matched the colored caps that the children wore.

There proved to be just fifteen streamer, and each child was allowed to pick out a streamer to correspond with the color of the cap worn.  Thus a little girl with a pink cap would pick out a pink streamer; a little boy with a green cap, a green streamer, and so on.  The children who held the May poles were then asked to stand at some distance apart out in the open space of the park, and each little group of five danced round and round, and back and forth, holding and twisting their colored streamers.

Somehow this amused them almost all the long spring afternoon.  Different children took turns holding the May poles and sometimes they would even form a procession and hippity-hop around the park.  They paraded down Main Street for a little way, but came back to the park in time to play “Drop the Handkerchief,” “Hide and Seek,” and “Tag,” before refreshments were served.

They were perfectly delighted, of course, with strawberry lemonade, brown bread sandwiches, and little frosted cup cakes, which their teacher’s mother had made and on which she had outlined in pink candies the individual initials of the children.

OUTDOOR AFFAIRS

Out-of-door entertaining is perhaps the easiest kind of all—­if you live in the country or the near-country.  Anything elaborate in the arrangements would be quite out of keeping and there’s something about being outdoors that takes away constraint.  That’s probably why outdoor parties, because they are simple and natural, bring people together in a spirit of good fellowship and are certain of success.

Children especially love them and young people always find an evening garden party entrancing.