The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1894-03-31
When He Was a Little BOY.

On PopocatapetL
Youths Companion
When He Was Little BOY.
There lives in the town of Boston an
old minister named the Rev. Edward
Everett Hale. He is now ~ years old
and ever since he grew up he has been
preaching good sermons and writing
good books. One of the most famous
of his stories is THE Man Without a
Country" He has always done a
great deal for Sunday schools, pub
lished the Sunday School Gazette and
founded the Lookup Legion and all
the Lend-a-Hand clubs. He has writ
ten ever so many books for children
and there is surely no other old man
in this whole country whom so many
children love. Wherever there are
Sunday schools, whether it is in Cali
fornia, or Texas or Florida or Maine, the
children know him rs their friend. He
has been writing story of his life,
and the extracts printed here tell
what he did when he went to school
in Boston, seventy years ago. Boston
is very big city now and its public
school system is famous, but it was
not so when DIR. Hale was little boy,
as you will see.
In his book DR.. Hale says: At my
own imprudcnt request, not to say
urgency, l was sent to school with
two sisters and a brother, older than
!, when l was rcckoned as about 2
years old. The school was an old
fashioned wooden house, which 'front.'
ed on little court which led off Sum
mer street. We went up one flight
of narrow stairs and here
the northern room of the two
bedrooms of the house was
occupied by Miss Susan Whitney for
her school and the southern room,
which had windows OF Sunni er street,
by Miss Ayrcs, of whom Miss Whit
ncy had formerly been an assistant.
Miss Whitney afterwards educated
more than one generation of the chill
dren of Boston families. / supposed
her to be one of the most aged and
certainly the most learned woman of
her time. | believe she was a kind
hearted intelligent girl of II when l
first knew her. l also supposed the
room to be large hall, though
knew il was not nearly so large as
our own parlors at home. 1t may
have been eighteen feet square. The
floor was sanded with clean sand
every Thursday and Saturday after
noon This was Il matter of practical
Importance to us, because with the
sapd, using our feet as tools, we
made sand pics. You gather the
sand with the inside edge of either
shoe from a greater or less distance,
as the size of the pic requires. AS you
gain skill, the heap which you make
is more and more round. When it is
well rounded you hatten it by a care
full pressure of one foot from above.
Here it will be seen that full success
depends on your keeping the sole of the
shoe exactly parallel with the plane
of the floor. If you find you have sue
cecdcd when you withdraw the shoe,
you prick the pie with n pin or broom
splint provided for the purpose, prick
ing it in whatever pattern you like.
The skill of Il good picmaker is meas.
urcd largely by these patterns. 1t
will readily be seen that the pie is
better If the sand is little moist.
But beggars cannot DC choosers, and
while we preferred the sand on Mon
days and Fridays, when it was fresh,
we took it us it came.
dwell on this detail ut length be-
cause it is one instance as good as
hundred of the way in which we
adapted ourselves to the conditions of
our times. Children now have carpets
on their kindergarten floors, where
sand is unknown; SO we have to pro-
vide clay for them to model with, and
put heap of sand in the back yard.
Miss Whitney provided for the same
needs by simpler device, which
dare say is as old as King Alfred.
cannot tell how we were taught
to read, for / cannot remember the
time when / could not read as we'll as
can now. There was little spelling
book called the "New York Spelling
Book, printed by Mahlon Day. When,
afterwards, l came to read about
Mahlon in the book of Ruth my notion
of him was of n man who had the same
name MS the man who published the
spelling book. My grandfather had
made a spelling book which we had at
home. Privately ] knew that because
he made it, it must he better than the
book at school, but was far too proud
to explain this to Miss Whitney. l
accepted her spelling book in the
same spirit in which have often
acted since, falling in with tho general
drift because the matter was of no
great consequence. For reading