AN OPEN-EYED
CONSPIRACY

I

The day had been very hot under thetall trees which everywhere embower and stifle Saratoga, for theyshut out the air as well as the sun; and after tea (they stillhave an early dinner at all the hotels in Saratoga, and tea isthe last meal of the day) I strolled over to the pretty CongressPark, in the hope of getting a breath of coolness there.Mrs. March preferred to take the chances on the verandah of ourpleasant little hotel, where I left her with the other ladies,forty fanning like one, as they rocked to and fro under the rooflifted to the third story by those lofty shafts peculiar to theSaratoga architecture. As far as coolness was concerned, Ithought she was wise after I reached the park, for I found noneof it there. I tried first a chair in the arabesquepavilion (I call it arabesque in despair; it might very well beSwiss; it is charming, at all events), and studied to deceivemyself with the fresh-looking ebullition of the spring in thevast glass bowls your goblets are served from (people say it ispumped, and artificially aërated); but after a few momentsthis would not do, and I went out to a bench, of the rows besidethe gravelled walks. It was no better there; but I fanciedit would be better on the little isle in the little lake, wherethe fountain was flinging a sheaf of spray into the dullair. This looked even cooler than the bubbling spring inthe glass vases, and it sounded vastly cooler. There wouldbe mosquitoes there, of course, I admitted in the debate I hadwith myself before I decided to make experiment of the place, andthe event proved me right. There were certainly somemosquitoes in the Grecian temple (if it is not a Turkish kiosk;perhaps we had better compromise, and call it a Grecian kiosk),which you reach by a foot-bridge from the mainland, and there wasa damp in the air which might pass for coolness. There werethree or four people standing vaguely about in the kiosk; but myidle mind fixed itself upon a young French-Canadian mother of lowdegree, who sat, with her small boy, on the verge of the pavementnear the water. She scolded him in their parlance forhaving got himself so dirty, and then she smacked his poor,filthy little hands, with a frown of superior virtue, though Idid not find her so very much cleaner herself. I cannot seechildren beaten without a heartache, and I continued to sufferfor this small wretch even after he had avenged himself by eatinga handful of peanut shells, which would be sure to disagree withhim and make his mother more trouble. In fact, Iexperienced no relief till his mother, having spent her insensatepassion, gathered him up with sufficient tenderness, and carriedhim away. Then, for the first time, I noticed a girlsitting in a chair just outside the kiosk,

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