r humble home.

The great world was full of great problems which wearied and perplexed
men's brains and seemed wellnigh unsolvable, but she had solved her own
little problem in her own little way, and was at peace.

In a few days Mr. Sapp called with the subscription-paper. He had got
sixteen scholars signed,--more than he expected. That was a good
prospect for a summer school. They wanted her to begin on the following
Monday; which she promised to do. Then she asked him if she could board
at his house a week or two, until she could make some arrangements to
ride from home. Yes, she could; he guessed a dollar and a half a week
for board would be about the fair thing.

So, early Monday morning she bade her grandmother good-by, and, with her
books under her arm, set forth to walk to Buck Creek district. The
school-house door was locked when she got there, but a few timid
country-children were sitting on the door-steps or on the fence, with
their school-books and dinner-buckets. Mr. Sapp came over and unlocked
the door; then, as it was half-past eight, Elvira rang the little bell
which she found on the teacher's desk, and school began. After taking
down the children's names and ages and assigning desks to them, she
heard them read in their first, second, or third readers, and questioned
them about the progress they had made in other branches. Other children
came in from time to time, until there were twenty-two present. And when
Mr. Sapp went home at "little recess," as the intermission of fifteen
minutes in the middle of the forenoon was called, he told her that her
school opened very well. "Big recess" was the intermission from twelve
o'clock till half-past one. In that time the children ate their dinners
and then scattered to play in the large grassy yard or in the shade of
the adjoining woods. Elvira won their hearts by going out and playing
prisoners' base and two or three other games with them. When she rang
the bell again, the children said, "It's books now," meaning the time
allotted to study and recitation, came in red and panting, and, with the
energy generated by violent exercise, got out their books and turned to
their lessons as if they meant to learn everything there. But as their
blood cooled their efforts relaxed, and they were soon looking idly
around the school-room for some source of entertainment. When Elvira
called up a class to recite, the children at their seats looked and
listened with absorbed in