And as Mrs. Grumble made no reply, he added: 

“That is something God has not learned yet.”

“Please,” said Mrs. Grumble, “speak of God with more respect.”

After supper Mr. Jeminy sat in his study reading the story of Saint Francis, the Poor Brother of Assisi.  One day, soon after the saint had left behind him the gay affairs of town, to embrace poverty, for Jesus’ sake, and while he was still living in a hut of green branches near the little chapel of Saint Damian, he beheld his father coming to upbraid him for what he considered his son’s obstinate folly.  At once Saint Francis, who was possessed of a quick wit, began to gather together a number of old stones, which he tried to place one on top of the other.  But as fast as he put them up, the stones, broken and uneven, fell down again.  “Aha,” cried old Bernadone, when he came up to his son, “I see how you are wasting your time.  What are you doing?  I am sick of you.”

“I am building the world again,” said Francis mildly; “it is all the more difficult because, for building material, I can find nothing but these old stones.”

Mr. Jeminy gave his pupils their final examination in a meadow below the schoolhouse.  There, seated among the dandelions, with voices as shrill as the crickets, they answered his questions, and watched the clouds, like great pillows, sail on the wind from west to east.  Under the shiny sky, among the warm, sweet fields, Mr. Jeminy looked no more important than a robin, and not much wiser.  Had the children been older, they would have tried all the more to please him, but because they were young, they laughed, teased each other, blew on blades of grass, and made dandelion chains.  Mr. Jeminy examined the Fifth Reader.  “Bound the United States,” he said.

“On the west by the Pacific Ocean,” began a red-cheeked plowboy, to whom the ocean was no more than hearsay.

“Where is San Francisco?”

“San Francisco is in California.”

“Where is Seattle?”

But no one knew.  Then Mr. Jeminy thought to himself, “I am not much wiser than that.  For I think that Seattle is a little black period on a map.  But to them, it is a name, like China, or Jerusalem; it is here, or there, in the stories they tell each other.  And I believe their Seattle is full of interesting people.”

“Well, then,” he said, “let me hear you bound Vermont.”

That was something everybody knew.

He took the First and Second Reader through their sums.  “Two apples and two apples make . . .”

“Four apples.”

“And three apples from eight apples leave . . .”

“Five apples.”

When spelling time came, the children, going down to the foot, rolled over each other in the grass, with loud shouts.  At last only two were left to dispute the letters in asparagus, elephant, constancy, and philosophical.  Then Mr. Jeminy gathered the children about him.