MRS. LIVA A. SHAW.

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OUR YOUNG FOLKS.

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WORK AMONG THE CHILDREN.

BY MRS. L.R.  GREENE.

I have spent nearly five years in teaching the little colored children in this Southland.  In my department there are over ninety bright, enthusiastic little folks between the ages of five and thirteen.  I have often wished that the anxious inquirers as to whether the colored children were as bright and smart intellectually as white ones, could visit my room, and the little people would answer the question themselves.

My pupils, with one exception, being day scholars, I have had an excellent opportunity to know the colored people.  I go to their homes; some I find as cosy and prettily fitted up as the average home at the North, while others are miserable apologies for the name.

I often, Sunday afternoons, take a bundle of papers and go through some of the streets where I find boys playing ball or marbles, and flying kites.  When I ask why they haven’t been to Sunday-school, or at home reading, they tell me they have no clothes, and that they have nothing to read at home; as I distribute the papers, they lay down bat and ball and eagerly devour the stories and study the pictures.

I find some very bright little fellows among them.  I asked one little boy, “Won’t you come to my Sunday-school?” He replied at once, “Oh yes.”  I said, “Do you know where I teach?” The ready answer came at once, “Up at the big college yonder,” The next Sunday, as I went in, the first child I saw was Dan.  He sat with eyes and mouth wide open as we talked about Joseph, sung our little hymns and repeated the commandments—­ things he had never heard before.  The next Sabbath he was there as interested and eager as on the first, his bare feet hanging from the chair; but the third Sunday as I went out the gate, there stood Dan, forlorn enough.  I said, “Aren’t you going to Sunday-School?” He said, “I can’t go; my sister is married, my mother has gone crazy, and I haven’t a clean shirt.”  It would have melted the stoutest heart to have heard his sorrowful tale.  I found him soon after, and through the kindness of a Northern friend in paying his tuition, I had him in my school, where he proved himself bright and interesting.

I might cite many such instances that have come within my observation, if time and space would permit.  I long for much that is wasted at the North to help many such bright, interesting, needy little children.

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RECEIPTS FOR MAY, 1889.

MAINE, $352.06.

Acton.  Cong.  Ch. and Soc. $3.50

Albany.  Anna K. Cummings,
  for Mountain Work 2.00