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April 21, 1909. THE PRESBYTERIAN
The teacher said, "Dorothy Dear, I am afraid you are
not doing as well as you can!"
So Dorothy Dear tried harder, and the teacher asked.
*'ls this the best you can do?"
"Perhaps it is, and perhaps it is isn't," answered
uorotny i^car.
But you must tell me," said the teacher, very much
annoyed. "Did you write as well as you can?"
"Perhaps I did, and perhaps I didn't," answered
Dorothy Dear again.
Remain after school!" said the teacher then with
some impatience; and again poor little Dorothy Dear
went home in tears from the school house.
Then Dorothy's mother made a third visit to the
sxhool house, and after that Dorothy Dear kept true
to her truthful little heart, and her teacher did not misunderstand
her. #
A new year came, and Dorothy Dear was in the fourth
grade. The new work was composition. As the fourthgrade
teacher, who was the third-grade teacher
promoted, read Dorothy Dear's work, she said with a
little smile on her face. "I guess you did your very
best this time.''
And Dorothy Dear answered, quietly and respectfully
and truthfully, "Perhaps I did, and perhaps I didn't."
But this time the teacher understood.?Little Folks.
GRANDMA'S LONG SCHOOL NAP.
By Emma C. Dowd.
Claire ran in from school, eager and smiling. #
"Something: avvfullv funnv hannenpd tnrlnv " ?;ri
"Jeannie Pardee went fast asleep, and Miss Winthrop
liad to wake her up!"
"When I got sleepy," said grandma, "though I guess
1 wasn't quite so big as you, they put me to bed."
"But not in school?" cried Claire.
"Certainly. That's what I mean." replied grandma.
"A bed?right in school?" squealed Claire, laughing.
"Why, how funny!"
"It would seem so now, but children went to school
younger than they do nowadays, and the little ones
needed naps.. So there was a bed in the corner of the
big entry?just a small mattress on the floor, with a
bed-quilt or comfortable for covering in cold weather.
I don't believe I ever told you about the time I shall
always remember"?and grandma laughed softly to her
sen.
"Oh, please tell me!" pleaded Claire. "Is it about
going to bed in school?"
"Yes. I recollect I was studying my spelling lesson,
and grew drowsy, so the teacher said I'd better have
a nap. I tumbled down in the corner and pulled the
comfortable all up around my head, it was so cold. In
a minute I was fast asleep. It happened that the teacher
was sent for to come home early, because some one
of the family was sick. So <;he let out school in a hurry,
anrl 1? ? ' * "
.iwuuy tnougnt 01 me, down in the dark corner
of the entry. When I woke up the moon was shining
in at the window, though it was still early, scarcely past
supper time."
"Oh, weren't you afraid?" gasped Claire.
"No, I don't remember that I was. I think I was a
little bewildered at first, and when I found the door
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was locked I recollect that 1 thought for a minute that
I'd have to stay there till somebody came. But then I
thought of the window, and it was an easy matter to
go out that way, for they were not far from the ground.
My father and mother supposed I had gone over to
Aunt Betsey's, as I often did, and that she had kept me
to supper, so nobody had worried a bit about me. The
teacher felt very mortified to think she had forgotten
me, and I don't believe she ever locked anybody in the
school house again."
HOW THE PUPPIES WERE NAMED.
(Louise M. Oglevee, in Sunday School Times.)
Princess and her four puppies were to go the next
day to the dog show, and Uncle Fred felt sure that
they would win a prize, but the puppies had no names,
and he declared that they must have before they went.
"I'll give a dollar to anybody that will find me four
good names," he said, and although everybody had
been suggesting names for a week, they all fell to thinking
and suggesting harder than ever, but none of the
names suited him.
Mollie hail come over that afternoon to take rare
the baby. She could earn a dime in that way, and to
Mollie a dime was a great deal. It meant that she could
have a new long pencil for school the next day and a '
new five-cent tablet, and that she would not have to go
to Sunday school next time without a penny as she often
did when she had to depend upon her father to give her
one.
"I should think you'd be trying awfully hard to think
of names and to get that dollar." she said to Janet who
who had just came out of the house with her musicroll,
ready to go for her music-lesson."I
am trying," said Janet. "Why don't you try, too?"
Mollie shook her head. "I've been trying, but I can't
think of even one good one," she said. Mollie was ten,
and she had never had a dollar or a half-dollar or even
a quarter.
Up and down, up and down she wheeled baby in his
go-cart until he grew tired. Then, to amuse him, she
sat down and began to count the buttons on his jacket
as the children did at school: "Silk, satin, calico, rags.
Silk, satin, calico, rags." Baby laughed, so she kept
on saying it over and over.
Presently Uncle Fred came out*. "Silk, satin, calico,
rags," Mollie was repeating.
"Why don't you ask me how I'd like those names for
my puppies?" he asked suddenly.
"I didn't know they were puppies* names," said
Mollie timidly.
"I didn't either," laughed Uncle Fred, "but they'll
be the puppies' names right away if you say so, and
I'll give you the prize."
"Oh, my!" and "Oh, thank you!" was all Mollie
could say as the dollar was put into her hand, and a
iew minutes later l ncie 1-reel said to Princess:
"I'll be happy to have you win a prize tomorrow,
but I'd rather make a child look as happy as Mollie did
just now than to win the biggest prize in the world."
Success grows out of struggles to overcome difficulties.
If there were no difficulties there would be nr?
successes.