quarter; with every year
or so taxes of three and sometimes four dollars on an eighty-acre farm
grinding him to earth. It were folly to expect more in rural districts
than a tight box, with benches and a stove in it. Never-the-less, it is
the thing signified more than its outward seeming that catches and holds
the eye upon the country school-house as you drive past it. You count
yourself fortunate if, mingled with the creaking of the buggy-springs,
you hear the hum of recitation; yet more fortunate if it is recess time,
and you can see the children out at play, the little girls holding to
one another's dress-tails as they solemnly circle to the chant:

"H-yar way gow rand tha malbarry bosh,
Tha malbarry bosh, tha malbarry bosh,
H-yar way gow rand tha malbarry bosh
On a cay-um and frasty marneng."

The boys are at marbles, if it is muddy enough, or one-old-cat, or
pom-pom-peel-away, with the normal percentage of them in reboant
tears--that is to say, one in three.

But even this is not the moment of illumination, when it comes upon you
like a flood how glorious is the land we live in, upon what sure and
certain footing are its institutions, when we know by spiritual insight
that whatsoever be the trial that awaits us, the people of these United
States, we shall be able for it! Yes. We shall be able for it.

If you would learn the secret of our nation's greatness, take your stand
some winter's morning just before nine o'clock, where you can overlook a
circle of some two or three miles' radius, the center being the Old Red
School-house. You will see little figures picking their way along the
miry roads, or ploughing through the deep drifts, cutting across the
fields, all drawing to the school-house, Bub in his wammus and his
cowhide boots, his cap with ear-laps, a knitted comforter about his
neck, and his hands glowing in scarlet mittens; and little Sis, in a
thick shawl, trudging along behind him, stepping in his tracks. They
chirrup, "Good-morning, sir!" As far as you can see them you have to
watch them, and something rises in your throat. Lord love 'em! Lord love
the children!

And then it comes to you, and it makes you catch your breath to think of
it, that every two or three miles all over this land, wherever there are
children at all, there is the Old Red Schoolhouse. At this very hour a
living tide, upbearing the hopes and prayers of God alone knows how many
loving hearts, the tide on whi