Spring Break

It is Spring Break, and the children run every where, screaming, giddy, snot-bedecked. Somewhere a little girl is crying.
"What is wrong, Little Girl?"
"Becky won't let me be the pony. She said I had to be the pony's mother, and I want to be the pony."
"No child, you are not the pony's mother. You are her friend, the much better looking, more popular pony who makes the first pony secretly jealous and ashamed. You are a show pony. Becky, as soon as she is old enough, will be hitched to a plow and spend the rest of her life tilling the fertile soil so that her master may earn a meager living from the sweat of her brow."
"What is fertile soil?"
"Dirt with poop in it."
"Oh."
As the little girl runs to tell Becky about the new rules they will play by I look over the rest of the playground, the sun setting tranquilly behind the swings. "It's good for children to cry," I think. "Crying builds character."