I WONDER if the Pansies have been posted about “rubber grapes”? Little rubber bags made to look exactly like large beautiful grapes; but what do you think fills them, instead of the delicious fruit which God has made? Why, brandy, or whiskey, or wine, or whatever liquor the buyer prefers! Think of it! The circular describing them says one great advantage is, “that travellers can refresh themselves in this way without exciting observation.” Can they? Suppose we make that part hard for them; thirty thousand Pansy Blossoms with their eyes wide open are not going to be cheated by rubber grapes. Of course every boy and girl will see to it that no miserable humbug who pretends to be a “fruit dealer” gets any of their money for his cheating grapes. But isn’t Satan smart, and cunning, and busy? Really, it becomes us to keep our eyes very wide open indeed.
WHO among us has ever visited the school for Indians in Carlisle, Pa.? If any Pansy Blossom has been there, I wish he or she would write us a letter about the school. It is a very interesting place; four hundred and fifty scholars, boys and girls; the girls in navy-blue dresses and cloaks, the cloaks lined with scarlet, the boys in military dress. With their very bright eyes, and their very black hair, I think they must make a handsome picture.
Industrious people are they; the cooking is done entirely by the pupils; the clothing is all made by them; they even make their own shoes! They are very good scholars; some of them really brilliant.
You wonder how they get time to study, with so much work to be done; that is all nicely planned for them. Half the pupils go to school in the morning, while the other half are at work in the sewing-room, the pantry, the harness shop, the printing office, the carpenter’s room, and the like. In the afternoon these two divisions change places; the students work, and the workmen turn students.
Think what a little while ago these boys and girls were roaming through the forests, sleeping on the ground, their only dress old blankets wrapped about them; learning to be dangerous enemies to all the white race! Now some of them are Christians, and all are well-behaved and industrious. Who will remember to pray daily for the Indian School at Carlisle?