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A LESSON IN HOME BUILDING.

By a Teacher. 
Andersonville, Ga.

A woman came in this evening to sell strawberries which were neatly covered with a bit of white cloth.  She looked around our sitting-room and shook her turbaned head, saying, “I sure would be afraid to live in this house.”  “Why,” I asked, curious to know what fearful thing she saw in her glance.  “Oh, it’s so big, and has so many rooms.”  Our cozy home, so snug, with not an inch of unused room, that we call our “Bird’s Nest!” Alas for the people that do not feel at home save in a one-roomed cabin, and do not feel the necessity of work unless they are hungry.  I long so, sometimes, for something that will make this people hungry and thirsty for better things, that will make them dissatisfied with the things that content them now.  The longing is sure to come, if we can have patience to wait.

A woman a short distance away lives in a house whose roof lets in the water in streams during a heavy rain.  She called on us in the spring so hoarse that she could hardly speak.  A few questions brought out the trouble, and revealed the fact that she owned a pile of lumber near by.  I asked her why they did not repair it.  She thought it too old, and the reason she gave for not building a new one was that she was waiting for her “old man” to begin.  I found that her daughter was teaching school in the country, and had $25 already due her that she could use for the work.  I told her to have one room put up at once, and build others as she had money.  She thought a little, then said, “Tell me all about it, and I’ll do just as you say.”  Now the room is nearly finished (not ceiled or plastered, for such extras are almost unknown), and a prouder woman would be hard to find.  All are not so willing to be taught, but I rejoice over every improvement.

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AMONG THE INDIANS.

CLOSING EXERCISES AT SANTEE NORMAL SCHOOL.

By Miss Edith Leonard.

The last busy days of the school year are over.  We have gathered the first fruits of our work; we hope there will be a greater harvest in years to come.

At the communion service, on June 7, three of our pupils were received into the church.  The next Thursday came the evening of declamations, recitations, and music, for which the pupils had been preparing.  During the last four weeks it was a common thing to find a boy declaiming to an imaginary audience in the schoolroom, or to find a girl reciting in some secluded spot in the yard, or on the hills in the pasture.  In most schools that is nothing worthy of remark, but to us it shows that the young people are beginning to feel that their success depends on their own efforts.

When the evening came we had an enjoyable entertainment.  The house was decorated with the tall, graceful stems of the Solomon’s Seal, and the platform had a rug and potted plants upon it, and our two beautiful flags draped behind it.