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Life in the making: 335 total pages.

as large as a real baby and dressed in real baby clothes, The attention of the girls was centered upon this treasure, and the boys began to feel decidedly out of it. They soon devised a game, however, which would allow them MIDDLE CHILDHOOD 63 to participate without loss of dignity in the girls' game of "house." They were to be kidnapers. At night, when the girls were asleep, they were to break into the house, steal the baby away, kill it, and bury it. So heartily did they enter into the spirit of the game that the doll really was beheaded and buried. Their parents were shocked and wondered how their children could have thought of such a thing. As this occurred before the days of the moving-picture theater, that institution cannot be blamed for having supplied the incentive for the game. It is probable that a newspaper story may have suggested parts of the plot, while the boys simply invented the rest. In many of the make-believe games of this period we find imitation and imagination blended in this way. Such imitative play is far removed

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