Another baby of the same age is Peggy.  She is needlessly handled and caressed.  She is kissed a hundred times a day with rough affection, which is mistaken for tenderness and love.  She is “bounced” up and down and around; and the people about her, who believe themselves her friends and would be heartbroken if she were taken from them, talk at her, and not with her; they make her do “cunning little things,” and then laugh and admire; they try over and over to force her to speak words when her little brain is not ready for the effort; and when she is awake, she is almost constantly surrounded by “loving” noise.  Peggy is capable of being as good a friend as Heidi, but she is not allowed to be.  Her family are so overwhelmed by their own feelings of love and admiration that they really only love themselves in her, for they give her not the slightest opportunity to be herself.  The poor baby has sleepless, crying nights, and a little irritating illness hanging about her all the time; the doctor is called, and every one wonders why she should be ill; every one worries about her; but the caressing and noisy affection go on.  Although much of the difference between these two babies could probably be accounted for by differences of heredity and temperament, it nevertheless remains true that it is very largely the result of a difference between wise and foolish parents.

The real friendship which her mother gave to Heidi, and which resulted in her happy, placid ways and quickly responsive intelligence, meets with a like response in older children; and reciprocal friendship grows in strength and in pleasure both for child and older friend, as the child grows older.  When a child is permitted the freedom of his own individuality, he can show the best in himself.  When he is tempted to go wrong, he can be rationally guided in the right way in such a manner that he will accept the guidance as an act of friendship; and to that friendship he will feel bound in honor to be true, because he knows that we, his friends, are obeying the same laws.  Of course all this comes to him from no conscious action of his own mind, but from an unconscious, contented recognition of the state of mind of his older friends.

A poor woman, who lived in one room with her husband and two children, said once in a flash of new intelligence, “Now I see:  the more I hollers, the more the children hollers; I am not going to holler any more.”  There are various grades of “hollering;” we “holler” often without a sound, and the child feels it, and “hollers” with many sounds which are distressing to him and to us.

It is primarily true with babies and young children that “if you want to have a friend, you must be a friend.”  If we want courtesy and kindliness from a child, we must be courteous and kindly to him.  Not in outside ways alone,—­a child quickly feels the sham of mere superficial attention,—­but sincerely, with a living interest.