Ruby at School

by Mrs. George A. Paull

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.