ules and regulations laid down by those who had
fashioned her for this very work, and were not these same warranted to
keep in any climate, and not to be affected by dampness or dry weather?
She had put her faith in a system and had paid for what she received;
and she didn't propose to be beaten out of her possession by any little
white-headed son of a Methodist preacher, in a town of a thousand
inhabitants.

She showed "Dodd" how to divide the handful of beans into little
bunches of three each, and how to lay each pile by itself along the top
of the desk, and then left him to be amused according to the rule in
such cases made and provided.

Now it is admitted, right here, that beans are not a strictly
Kindergarten "property"--to bring a stage term into the schoolroom--but
one seldom sees genuine Kindergarten properties, or hardly ever, even
in St. Louis, and beans are so commonly used as above stated, that it
can hardly be the fault of the harmless vegetable that Miss Stone's
plan did not succeed exactly as she wished it to. The fact is, "Dodd"
knew how to count before he went to school, and could even add and
subtract fairly, as was shown by his doing errands at the store for his
mother and counting the change which he brought back to her. The bean
business was therefore mere nonsense to him. He turned up his nose at
the inoffensive kidney-shaped pellets before him, and his reverence for
the dignity of the schoolroom and his faith in Miss Stone fell several
degrees in a few minutes.

Perhaps it would not have been so in Boston. In that city, I am told,
the bean is held in such reverence by all grown-up people that one
might well expect to see the quality descend to all children, as a
natural inheritance. But Circleville is not Boston, and there are
thousands of other towns in these United States that are like
Circleville in this respect.

However, "Dodd" sat idly moving the beans about for some time. He was
quiet, and gradually Miss Stone forgot him in the press of other
thoughts. To be plain, she had recently joined an Art Club, an
organization composed of a few ladies in the little village, women
whose husbands were well-to-do, and who, being childless, were restless
and anxious to "become developed." Miss Stone was a member of this
club, and in a few days she was to read a paper on "Giunta Pisano, and
his probable relation to Cimabue," and the subject was working her
mightily, for she was anxious to ha