Ruby at School

by Mrs. George A. Paull

CHAPTER XXII.

SUNDAY AT SCHOOL.

Sunday morning the scholars slept nearly an hour longer than usual, and this was looked upon as a great treat, particularly in the winter months when it was scarcely light before seven. It seemed very early rising to get up by lamp-light, and all the girls were quite ready to take the extra hour of sleep upon Sunday mornings.

After breakfast, which was always nicer than upon other days, when they had made their rooms tidy, and prepared themselves for church, all but their coats and hats, Miss Chapman called them down to the school-room to study a Bible lesson for half an hour.

By this time the church bell would begin to ring, and they would go up to their rooms and get ready to start, and then the little procession would start out just as they did when they went to walk, only, instead of one of the girls walking at the head, Miss Chapman and Miss Ketchum were there, and the girls followed them.

It was a very short walk, just across the street, so it was not necessary to start until the second bell had begun to ring. The girls would have been very glad if it had been a little longer walk, but it only took two or three minutes to walk down to the crossing at the corner, and then go across to the pretty vine-covered church.

Miss Chapman had one rule that none of the girls liked at all, and yet it was one for which they were all very glad when they had grown older, and did not have to follow it unless they wished.

It was her rule that the girls should all listen very attentively to the sermon, remember the text, and the chapter from which it was taken, and then when they came home they were required, after dinner, to spend an hour in writing down all that they could remember of the sermon. At first Ruby was sure that she never could remember anything to write down afterwards, and though she listened as hard as she could, and did her very best to remember, all that she could possibly keep in her head was the text, and one sentence, the sentence with which Mr. Morsell began his sermon; but she soon found that by listening very closely and trying to remember, she grew able to remember much more.

Some of the older girls, who had been with Miss Chapman for two and three years, and were accustomed to this practice, could write down a really good epitome of the sermon, and once in a while a scholar did so well that Miss Chapman would send her work over to the minister, and the next time he came to tea he would compliment her for it; and that not only pleased the scholar, but made all the others determine to do so well that their extracts, too, should be sent over to him sometimes.

Mr. Morsell always remembered what young hearers he had, and he never failed to put something in his sermon that even Ruby and Maude could understand and remember, if they tried hard enough; so it was a great deal easier for them than if he had preached only for grown-up people.

Each girl had a blank-book, and after Miss Chapman had looked her extracts over, she required the scholars to copy these extracts into their blank-books.

Ruby was quite pleased when she found that each Sunday she could remember more and more, and that where five lines contained all that she remembered of the first sermon, it soon took two pages to hold all that she could write.

She was glad that she had to copy it in this blank-book, for then she could take it home with her at Christmas, and show it to her father and mother and Ruthy; and everything that she did she always wanted to show them, or tell them about, for she never forgot the dear ones. Maude was learning to remember nicely, too. She was not at all a dull little girl. It was only that she had not been accustomed to use her mind when she came to the school, and it had taken her some little time to learn to keep her thoughts upon anything, and really study. She was quite pleased when she found that in this exercise of memory she was doing quite as well as any of the new scholars, and better than four or five of them could do.

After a while, when the girls grew older, and finished learning all that they could study with Miss Chapman, and some, perhaps, did not go to school any more, they were very glad that they had learned to listen so attentively; for any one of those little girls who practised listening to the sermon and remembering all they could of it, and then strengthened their memory by writing it down afterwards, found that they had a great deal to be glad of in this training. Even after they grew up, they were so in the habit of listening attentively that they never heard a sermon without being able to remember a great deal of it; so their memories were not like sieves, through which a great deal could run, but in which very little, or perhaps nothing, would remain.

But they did not realize then how good it was for them, for even grown-up people very seldom realize that, and so the girls grumbled a good deal sometimes, when they had to sit down on Sunday afternoon and write out what they could remember.

There was one thing, however, which the girls soon discovered. It did not make it any easier to grumble about it, and the sooner one set to work in good earnest, the more one was likely to remember of the sermon, and the sooner the task was accomplished; and they had the rest of the afternoon to themselves until Bible-class hour just before tea-time.

Then Miss Chapman heard them say the catechism, and talked to them and heard them recite the Bible lesson which they had studied that morning. The time between writing the sermon and the Bible class was always a pleasant time to the scholars. They sat in one another's rooms and talked, or if it was a pleasant day they went out and walked about the garden. While Miss Chapman would not allow any loud laughing nor playing on this day, yet she was glad to have it one which the girls would enjoy as much as possible, and would look back upon with pleasure.

There was always some special dainty for tea, and then, after tea, the girls all gathered around the piano in the parlor, and Miss Emma played hymns for them, and they sang until it was time to go to bed. They all enjoyed this. Even the girls who could not sing very well themselves liked to hear the others sing, and they were sorry when the old clock in the hall struck the bed-time hour.

Every Sunday seemed such a long step towards the holidays when they should go home and see their fathers and mothers again. While after the first week or two none of the girls were homesick, and all were very happy, yet there was not one of them who had not a little square of paper near the head of her bed, with as many marks upon it as there were days before vacation began, and every morning the first thing they did was to scratch one of these marks off. So Sunday seemed a long step ahead when they looked back over seven days that had passed.

Agnes and Ruby generally spent the leisure part of Sunday afternoon with Miss Ketchum. She was very fond of the little girls, and liked to have them come and see her, so they had a very pleasant time in her room.

They would save their bags of candy, instead of eating them on Saturday, and Miss Ketchum would have a nice little plain cake, of which her little visitors were very fond, and then they would take down the dishes and have a very nice time.

While they were enjoying the good things Miss Ketchum would read to them, or they would see which could tell her the most about the extracts they had written from the sermon. They had such pleasant times with her that they were always sorry when the boll rang for Bible class, and they had to say good-by and run away.

Altogether, Sunday was a very happy day at Miss Chapman's, not only to Ruby and Agnes, but to all the other scholars, and they were always ready to welcome it.