Show the old settler my aly dear san trailers fron just when school it is out for the clay and I 1 have rf repaired paired to tile the seclusion of my bedroom and reclined with a sigh comes knocking at the door and with confidential smile calls my attention to his shoes now I 1 have been hurting all day with the consciousness that we simply have no more shoes to fit boats but lie he looks trustingly at me out of his dark piute diute eyes and knows know that I 1 can do something to meet the emergency and he knows too that I 1 will do 0 it lie e has recognized unconsciously that I 1 have a strange appetite for the tough lesson so he takes off his bedraggled shoes and I 1 dig and wash most of the mud out of them and some of the stink but not all and when at last the shoes are ready for service he puts them on and departs without a word he is not ungrateful ingratitude can exist only as the opposite to gratitude and boats knows neither I 1 am not disappointed I 1 watch him with an amused satisfaction as he goes out the gate he is my teacher he is one of the most interesting kids I 1 ever saw saturday turns out to be a blizzard with howling wind and driving snow and we sit by our fire f i r e rejoicing that there is one day of the week without school then we become aware that a navajo boy plastered with snow is knocking at the door his people want us to corne come quick a new baby is born or soon to be born and his s sister ister i is is dangerously ill it is more than a mile to their hogan no car could reach them for mud and rocks the trail leads across tile the precipitous gulch and along the tree grown hillside this is a new and promising assignment in our human interest class so we bundle up and plod forth with anticipation into the storm we come dragging into the hogan and do what we can for them omit the details and when the young mother feels better they are willing for us to go which we do silently navajo style as we stoop thru the narrow doorway out into the storm it this any reflection on them not at all our school opportunity has shown somewhat of the world in which they live and they are very interesting members of the faculty in the great school which we are glad to be attending this is school not a lot of dull books which try in vain to tell about things and situations but the things and situations in all their fresh reality ALBERT R LYMAN |