THE LITTLE IMAGE PEDDLERS I think it was the following Friday afternoon that a curious diversion occurred at the schoolhouse, just as the school was dismissed.

Coming slowly along the white highway two small boys were espied, each carrying on his head a raft-like platform laden with plaster-of-Paris images.
They were dark-complexioned little fellows, not more than twelve or thirteen years old; and were having difficulty to keep their feet and stagger along with their preposterous burdens.
The plaster casts comprised images of saints, elephants, giraffes, cherubs with little wings tinted in pink and yellow, a tall Madonna and Child, a bust of George Washington, a Napoleon, a grinning Voltaire, an angel with a pink trumpet and an evil-looking Tom Paine.
I suppose the loads were not as heavy as they looked, but the boys were having a hard time of it, to judge from their distressed faces peering anxiously from underneath the rafts which, at each step, rocked to and fro and seemed always on the point of toppling.

Frantic clutches of small brown hands and the quick shifting of feet alone saved a smash-up.
The master was still in the schoolhouse with some of the older boys and girls; but the younger ones had rushed out when the bell rang.
"Hi, where are you going ?" several shouted.

"What you got on your heads ?" The little strangers turned their faces and, nodding violently, tried to smile ingratiatingly.

Some one let fly a snowball, and in a moment the mob of boys, shouting and laughing noisily, chased after them.