Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 May 1892 — Ruskin's Toys. [ARTICLE]

Ruskin's Toys.

The mother of John Buskin was In every sense a remarkable woman. Her son, in summing up her character, speaks of her as “having great power with not a little pride,” and adds that she was “entirely conscientious, and a consummate housekeeper. ” The home rule of Buskin's mother was-well-nigh Puritanic in severity; his toys were few, and his sources ofamusement limited. He says: For toys, I had a bunch of keys to play with as long as I was capable of pleasure in what glittered and Jingled; as 1 grew older I had a cart and a ball, and when I was 6 years old, two boxes of well-cut wooden bricks. With these modest, but I still think entirely sufficient possessions, and being always summarily whipped if I cried, did not do as I was bid, or tumbled on the stairs, I soon attained serene and secure methods of life and motion, and could pass my days contentedly In tracing the squares and comparing the colors of my carpet, examining the knots In the wood of the floor, or counting the bricks in the opposite houses. There were also intervals of rapturous excitement during the filling of the water-cart through its leathern pipe from the dripping iron post at the pavement edge, or the still more admirable proceedings of the turncock, when he turned and turned until a fountain sprang up in the middle of the street. But the carpet, and what patterns I could find in bed-covers, dresses, or wall-papers were my chief resources.