I arrived too early at one
of the village churches, and while I was waiting for a sexton a door
opened, and out poured the Sunday school, whose services had just ended.
On they came, dividing in the centre, and falling to the right and left
about me, thirty or forty boys and girls, between the ages of seven and
fifteen. I looked at them in astonishment. They all had fair skins, red
cheeks, and clear eyes; they were all broad-shouldered, straight, and
sturdy; the younger ones were more than sturdy,--they were fat, from the
ankles up. But perhaps the most noticeable thing of all was the quiet,
sturdy, unharassed expression which their faces wore; a look which is the
greatest charm of a child's face, but which we rarely see in children over
two or three years old. Boys of eleven or twelve were there, with
shoulders broader than the average of our boys at sixteen, and yet with
the pure, childlike look on their faces. Girls of ten or eleven were there
who looked almost like women,--that is, like ideal women,--simply because
they looked so calm and undisturbed.
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