222 THE CAROLINA MOUNTAINS 
wonders whether that father were more a philoso- 
pher or a humorist who, being condoled with because 
the school was so far away, "reckoned" it was just 
as well because the children were therefore better 
contented to stay at home. Another parent, phil- 
osophizing upon the questionable advantages of 
" book-larnin' " for his children, ended with the opti- 
mistic assertion, "Well, I reckon it don't hurt 'em 
noway — they so soon fergit it all." And the woman 
who said contentedly, "I can't neither read nor 
write, but I don't need to, for God has given me a 
pretty wit," summed up the ancient philosophy of 
a large part of the mountains. 
Passing a roadside school-house at "recess" 
time, one is astonished at the number of children 
crowding about the building. The forest may seem 
like an uninhabited wilderness, yet there are children 
enough to supply a small village. And even at the 
school-house far from the road, and hidden so well 
that it is cause for wonder that the children ever 
find it, one has seen them come darting out of the 
forest like rabbits, barefooted and sunbonneted, 
carrying such books as they had, and swinging their 
"dinner buckets" — lard pails most of them. If 
you expect to find these young backwoodsmen as 
shy as quails and overcome at the unprecedented 
appearance of strangers in their midst, you will be 
mistaken. They are not shy, and they are not bold, 
these children of the forest of Arden. They are glad 
to see you, and show it in smiles as broad as nature 
has made provision for. You feel that if you stayed a 
