saying over and over again with infinite patience, "Always bring a
penny," to know that their labor has not been in vain, and that as
a people we have made it the rule of our lives always to bring a
penny - and no more.

I have often tried to think what a Sabbath-school must be like in
California, where they have no pennies. It seems hardly possible
that the institution can exist under such a patent disability, and
yet it does. Do they work it on the same principle as the
post-office in that far-off land where you 'cannot buy one postal
card because the postmaster cannot make change, but must buy five
postal cards or two two-cent stamps and a postal? In other words,
does a nickel, the smallest extant coin, serve for five persons
for one Sunday or one person for five Sundays? I have often
wondered about this.

Subsidiary instruction in the preparatory course consists of sitting
right still and being nice, keeping your fingers out of Johnny Pym's
eye, because it hurts him and makes him cry, not grabbing in the
basket when it goes by, even though it does have pennies in it,
coaching in a repertory of songs like: "Beautiful, Beautiful Little
Hands," "You in Your Little Corner and I in Mine," " The Consecrated
Cross-Eyed Bear," "Pass Around the Wash-Rag" - the grown folks call
that "Pass Along the Watchword" and stories about David and Goliath,
Samson and the three hundred foxes with fire tied to their tails,
Moses in the bulrushes, the infant Samuel, Hagar in the wilderness,
and so forth. The clergy have often objected that these stories,
being told at the same period of life with those about Santa Claus,
"One time there was a little boy and he had a dog named Rover," the
little girl that had hair as black as ebony, skin as white as snow,