these old stones."

Mr. Jeminy gave his pupils their final examination in a meadow below
the schoolhouse. There, seated among the dandelions, with voices as
shrill as the crickets, they answered his questions, and watched the
clouds, like great pillows, sail on the wind from west to east. Under
the shiny sky, among the warm, sweet fields, Mr. Jeminy looked no more
important than a robin, and not much wiser. Had the children been
older, they would have tried all the more to please him, but because
they were young, they laughed, teased each other, blew on blades of
grass, and made dandelion chains. Mr. Jeminy examined the Fifth
Reader. "Bound the United States," he said.

"On the west by the Pacific Ocean," began a red-cheeked plowboy, to
whom the ocean was no more than hearsay.

"Where is San Francisco?"

"San Francisco is in California."

"Where is Seattle?"

But no one knew. Then Mr. Jeminy thought to himself, "I am not much
wiser than that. For I think that Seattle is a little black period on
a map. But to them, it is a name, like China, or Jerusalem; it is
here, or there, in the stories they tell each other. And I believe
their Seattle is full of interesting people."

"Well, then," he said, "let me hear you bound Vermont."