Miss Horton looked up from the exercises she was correcting.
“Certainly, if you think it will interest us, Ernestine,” she said.
Mary Hobart pulled at Ernie’s skirt, shook her head, and motioned imperiously to the first composition which still lay upon the desk.
But Lulu’s little eyes flashed the mean message,—“I knew you would not dare!”
And, without a moment’s hesitation, Ernie in a clear, serious voice began to read:
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
Benjamin Franklin was, when a boy,
His mother’s delight, and his grandmother’s joy;
He would chase after lightning wherever he spied it,
Because he declared that he wanted to ride it.