or tree or flower, or the shining company of the stars, were the human beings she found fettered by ignorance and sin. The human element made demands upon her mind and heart. Here was something for her to do. If they had been a colony of blind folk or cripples, their condition could not have appealed more strongly to her sympathy. Profanity, gambling, drunkenness and immorality were about her everywhere. The vices of the adults had long been imitated as play by the children. So one of Esther Bright's first innovations in school work was to organize play and teach games, and be in the midst of children at play. She was philosopher enough to realize that evil habits of years could not be uprooted at once; but she did such heroic weeding that the playground soon became comparatively decent. How to save the children, and how to help the older people of the community were absorbing questions to her. She was a resourceful woman, and began at once to plan wisely, and methodically carried out her plans. In her conferences with Mr. Clayton, her school trustee, she repeatedly expressed her conviction that the greatest work before them was to bring this great human need into vital relation with God. So it came about very naturally that a movement to organize a Bible school began in Gila.

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Into every home, far and near, went Esther Bright, always sympathetic, earnest and enthusiastic. Her enthusiasm proved contagious. There had been days of this house to house visitation, and now the day of the organization of the Bible school was at hand.

In the morning, Esther went to the schoolhouse to see that all was in readiness. She paused, as she so often did, to wonder at the glory of the scene. The[Pg 21] schoolhouse itself was a part of the picture. It was built of huge blocks of reddish brown adobe, crumbled at the corners. The red tile roof added a picturesque bit of color to the landscape. Just above the roof, at the right, rose an ample chimney. At the left, and a little back of the schoolhouse, towered two giant cactuses. To the north, stretched great barren foothills, like vast sand dunes by the sea, the dreariness of their gray-white, or reddish soil relieved only by occasional bunches of gray-green sage, mesquite bushes, cacti and the Spanish dagger, with its sword-like foliage, and tall spikes of seed-pods.

[Pg 21]

Beyond the foothills, miles away, though seeming near, towered rugged, cathedral-like masses of snow-capped mountains. The shadows flitted over the earth, now darkening the mountain country, now leaving 

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