II 
A RAINY DAY 
Ir was the first Friday of the fall term and there were 
only fifteen scholars at the weather-beaten shingled school- 
house at Foxes Corners. The usual number in winter 
was twenty-five, but some of the older pupils did not 
return until late in October, for these boys and girls helped 
their fathers and mothers either about the farm work or 
in the house, and as this school district was located in 
pretty rolling hill country, with woods and a river close by, 
city people came to board at the farm-houses and often 
did not go away until they had seen the leaves redden and 
fall. 
Miss Wilde, the teacher, was very glad to begin with 
only fifteen scholars. She was not very strong; the 
children were always restless during the first month after 
their vacation. Then, too, it is more difficult for a teacher 
to interest scholars that range from five to fifteen than 
where she has children all of an age. 
Miss Wilde was very patient, for she loved outdoors and 
liberty herself, and she knew just how hard it was in these 
first shut-in days for the children to look out the open 
windows and see the broad fields stretching out to the 
woods, and hear the water rushing over the dam at Hull’s 
Mill, and then take any interest in bounding the Philip- 
pine Islands and remembering why they are of special 
value to the United States. 
9 
