Many children in India now go to schools that are much like our own, but in the far-off villages, the master still sits on the ground, under a broad tree, with his scholars round him. The little boys sway their bodies backwards and forwards as they sing out their lesson, or bend over the sandy ground, to trace the outlines of the Sanskrit letters there as they shout out the names of them after him. So the days of childhood pass when all goes well, but if illness comes there is terrible suffering. The best that can happen to a Hindu child when he is ill, is to be left alone to get well or to die. If there is something very serious wrong with him, his parents may think there is a devil in the boy, and send for the barber, who does a great many things in an Indian village besides cutting hair and shaving chins. One little boy was getting better after a fever, but though the fever was gone his eyes were still very sore indeed. The barber was sent for, and when he came he did not bathe the sore red eyes, nor do anything to soothe the pain. Instead of that he began to burn the top of the wee boy’s black head, to pull the devil out by the burn! So the poor little fellow had to bear the pain of the burn as well as the pain in his eyes, and though the barber’s rough treatment was of no use, the father and mother tried no other plan. They let the eyes grow sorer and sorer till the boy was blind, and then they thought that Brahma must have written with his golden pen that their little son would lose his sight. So they did not trouble more about it, but began to think how they could make him earn money. They knew he would never be able to work. So they took him to a large town that he might beg, and make people pity him because of his blindness. But the boy need not have been blind. Another child called Yogina was very ill indeed. She lay in a fever, and as the fever raged, she said strange wild things, for her mind was wandering, and she did not know what she was saying. The other girls in the house were in terror. They thought some demon had entered into her, and they feared that it might leave her and go into one of them, so a priest who said he could force demons to leave those who were ill was asked to come and cure her.