All the little children carry with them little baskets and in the baskets are the prettiest Easter eggs that can be made. Some are painted and striped and spotted with bright colors; others are covered with silver and gilt paper. When the merry-makers get to the great big gates, where the policemen always stand, they march right through, because they know the policemen won’t stop them this time. The little fellows hold their heads high and feel very important, and the policemen smile as they pass by. The children keep coming and coming until by-and-by the lot is almost filled, all the way from the White House to the tall white monument, with laughing children—and with eggs! It would seem that there were no children left anywhere in Washington. The children are allowed to run on the grass just as much as they please for this one day.
If you go near one of the little hills or long banks you may hear one small girl say to another, “My egg’ll ’oll furver ’an your egg.” And the other small girl will answer, “No; mine’ll ’oll furvest.” And then they will start their eggs rolling down the hills and go racing after them to see whose egg goes the farthest.
Many of the boys throw their eggs along the ground like ninepin balls, and see whose will go the farthest. When they get tired of this they stand a little distance apart and roll their eggs against each other’s to see whose will break. There is another way that they try to break each other’s eggs. One holds an egg in his hand so that the top is uncovered, and another takes his egg and taps it gently against the first one. He keeps hitting a little harder and harder until one of them breaks, and the one whose egg doesn’t break is the winner.
Most of the eggs are boiled hard first, so that the children are not very sorry, after all, if their eggs do break, because they can eat them. And their mothers or nurses will give them crackers and salt to go with them.
In such a great crowd, where the children are allowed to run where they please, there are sure to be some little ones who will wander away from their guardians. All the little “lost” children, as fast as the officers find them, are taken to a small house in the center of the lot, and the mothers know just where to look for them. Often there are twenty or thirty little tots, all tired out, waiting to be claimed by their guardians.