speak of God with more respect."

After supper Mr. Jeminy sat in his study reading the story of Saint
Francis, the Poor Brother of Assisi. One day, soon after the saint had
left behind him the gay affairs of town, to embrace poverty, for Jesus'
sake, and while he was still living in a hut of green branches near the
little chapel of Saint Damian, he beheld his father coming to upbraid
him for what he considered his son's obstinate folly. At once Saint
Francis, who was possessed of a quick wit, began to gather together a
number of old stones, which he tried to place one on top of the other.
But as fast as he put them up, the stones, broken and uneven, fell down
again. "Aha," cried old Bernadone, when he came up to his son, "I see
how you are wasting your time. What are you doing? I am sick of you."

"I am building the world again," said Francis mildly; "it is all the
more difficult because, for building material, I can find nothing but
these old stones."

Mr. Jeminy gave his pupils their final examination in a meadow below
the schoolhouse. There, seated among the dandelions, with voices as
shrill as the crickets, they answered his questions, and watched the
clouds, like great pillows, sail on the wind from west to east. Under
the shiny sky, among the warm, sweet fields, Mr. Jeminy looked no more
important than a robin, and not much wiser. Had the children been
older, they would have tried all the more to please him, but because
they were young, they laughed, teased each other, blew on blades of
grass, and made dandelion chains. Mr. Jeminy examined the Fifth
Reader. "Bound the United States," he said.

"On the west by the Pacific Ocean," began a red-cheeked plowboy, to
whom the ocean was no more than hearsay.

"Where is San Francisco?"

"San Francisco is in California."

"Where is Seattle?"

But no one knew. Then Mr. Jeminy thought to himself, "I am not much
wiser than that. For I think that Seattle is a little black period on
a map. But to them, it is a name, like China, or Jerusalem; it is
here, or there, in the stories they tell each other. And I believe
their Seattle is full of interesting people."

"Well, then," he said, "let me hear you bound Vermont."

That was something everybody knew.

He took the First and Second Reader through their sums. "Two apples
and two apples make . . ."

"Four apples."

"And three apples from eight apples leave . . ."

"Five apples."

When spelling time