"Do you want to take out any?" she inquired. After examining the four or five shelves that comprised the library, I wanted to take out at least fifty. The books, especially the "juvenile books," were those of a former generation. Foremost among them were the "Rollo Books," "Sandford and Merton," Mary Howitt's "Story-Book," and "The Parents' Assistant." "Who selected the books?" I asked. "Nobody exactly _selected_ them," the librarian said. "Every one around here gave a few from their collections, so's we could have a near-to library--principally on account of the children. I live most convenient to every one hereabouts; so I had shelves put up in my lean-to for them." News travels very rapidly indeed in the country. My boy friend told some of the other children that I was reading the _oldest_ books in the library. "She takes them out by the armfuls," I overheard him remark. No doubt he made more comments that I did not overhear; for one morning a small girl called to see me, and, after a few preliminaries, said, "If you are through with 'The Fairchild Family,' may I have it? You like it awfully much, don't you?" Not only in the secular teaching of their children do thoughtful country parents, in common with careful fathers and mothers living elsewhere, try to obtain the best means and to use them to the best ends; in the religious instruction of their children they make a similar attempt. They are not content to let their children learn entirely at home, to depend solely upon parental guidance. The church, and even the Sunday school, are integral parts in the up-bringing of the most happily situated country children. The little white meeting-houses in the small rural villages are familiar places to the country child--joyously familiar places, at that. The only weekly outing that falls to the lot of the younger children of country parents is the Sunday trip to church and Sunday school. What do they get from it? Undoubtedly, very much what city children receive from the church and the Sunday school--in quantity and in quality. There is a constant pleasure from the singing; an occasional glimmer of illumination from the sermon; and an unfailing delight from the Bible stories. We can be reasonably sure that _all_ children get thus much from the habitual church and Sunday-school attendance. Some, irrespective of city or country environment, glean more. A small country boy of my acquaintance brought from Sunday school one of the most unique versions of a Scriptural passage with which I have ever met. "Did you go to church this morning?" I inquired of him, one Sunday afternoon, when, catching a glimpse of me under the trees near his home, he came, as he explained, to "pass the time of day" with me. "Yes," he answered; "and I went to Sunday school, too." "And what was your lesson about?" I asked. "Oh, about the roses--" "Roses?" I interrupted, in surprise. "Yes," the little boy went on; "the roses--you know--in the gardens."