TEACHER. Wrong! Next! (_Is interrupted by boy who wants a drink.
Two boys are appointed to get a bucket of water and pass it to
the others in tin cups._)
NEXT PUPIL. Stephen--says--that--the--girls--are--kissing.
(_Boys laugh._)
GIRL (_indignantly_). He didn't read that right!
TEACHER. Very well. You may read it.
GIRL (_still unmollified_). Stephen says that girls are kittens.
(_Teacher sends class to seats in disgrace to study their lesson._)
BOY (_in seat_). Teacher, how many is five less one?
TEACHER. Think that out yourself. If there were five crows in
Squire Green's field and you should shoot one, how many would
there be left?
BOY. Only one.
TEACHER. What? Think again.
BOY. The other four would fly off, wouldn't they?
GIRL (_raising hand_). How many scruples are there in a drachm?
TEACHER. Jonathan, tell Maria how many scruples there are in a drachm.
JONATHAN. Don't know, only that ma said as how pa took his dram
every morning without any scruples. I guess some drams don't
have no scruples.
TEACHER. Both of you refer to your tables.
GIRL (_raising hand_). Teacher, why does an elephant have a trunk?
BOY (_raising hand_). So's't he'd be an elephant, of course!
TEACHER. I will now hear the class in history. (_They pass out
to places, the boys trying to get a drink on the way._) The first
scholar may tell me something about Christopher Columbus.
FIRST GIRL. Christopher was once a little boy like me--no, I mean
he was a little girl like me--no, I don't!--well, he went to school
like me anyway. His mother's name was Geneva.
BOY. Hoh! It wasn't either. That was his father's name.
ANOTHER GIRL. Teacher, wasn't Geneva where he was born?
TEACHER. Yes, Mary, go on.
MARY. Somebody bought him a yacht or a steamer, I believe, and one
Friday he sailed over here to America and asked us if we had
been discovered yet, and we told him "No." "All right," he said,
"you have." So he took some of our Indians home with him to tell
the king that they had been discovered, and we named the United States
after him.
TEACHER. That is right in the main. One or two points I might take
exceptions to. The next may take George Washington and tell us
about him. (_Is interrupted by a boy in seat who raises his hand
and asks how many days there are in a year._) Who can tell Julius
how many days in a year?
VENUS. Three hundred and sixty-five days and a fourth.
BOY. What d'ye mean by "a fourth"?
DANIEL. Fourth of July, of course!
TEACHER. We will hear the next scholar.
PUPIL. George was born in Washington, D.C., and was named for that city.