This little idea showed her mastery over boys. She aroused their curiosity, and as curiosity is the mother of attention we all listened like regular fellows to what she had to say, and also kept a longing eye on the bag. We were all set to see what strange things she would draw from it when the lesson was over. She was a great teacher and always gave us boys a story form lesson, and it sank in to stay, and often memory brings back the truth she gave us and also the contents of the black bag. We can yet see pouring out of it wonderful truth as from a horn of plenty. Sometimes it would be some little trinket which had a bit of history connected with it that brought our heads together and opened our eyes in wonder as we looked and listened. The first object I remember she produced from the bag was a little idol from China. She had a sister there who had sent it to her. We had never seen an idol before, and as we passed it around the class for close inspection and listened to her tale of how the heathen worshiped it, it seemed to our boyish minds as fascinating as a fairy tale, and just as wonderful. Sometimes it would be a little flower for each of us that was produced from the black bag. She lived in those days when many of the city homes had a front-yard garden. She had such a garden, and when any of us were ill she brought us a cluster of beautiful flowers. Sometimes the black bag yielded a big apple apiece, and we boys never tasted such apples before, and devoured them as only an always hungry boy can do when he is at his best. We were always at our best when the black bag produced. Generally the lesson from the black bag had nothing to do with the regular Bible lesson, but was a supplementary lesson. Oftentimes there was no lesson to the object at all, but just a little gift which took its place with the reward cards of that day. One Saturday morning I met my teacher going to the market. She always stopped me when we met and had a few words with me, and often down in her basket she found a stick of candy among the contents which she always gave me, and which I always received with thanks. Her thoughts were with her boys so constantly that she always had a bit of candy among things in her basket, thinking that perhaps she might meet some of her boys playing in the street as she passed by. This particular morning she said: "Clarence, tomorrow I will have something new and wonderful in the black bag; tell all the boys to be sure to be present." Then she gave me a stick of candy which had a magic effect on my heels, for they seemed to have wings, as I spent the entire afternoon running around to the homes of the scholars and giving them the great news about the "Black Bag."