P. T. A. Meeting
"Why did it have to be pleasant all week and then rain on Saturday?" thought Jerry unhappily the following Saturday. He watched the rain slant against the front windows for a while and then picked up the morning paper to reread the comics. "April showers may bring May flowers, but it's tough on baseball," he said to himself.
Andy came in the living room. He had a much folded and unfolded sheet of paper in his hand. "Help me learn my piece, will you, Jerry? I can read pictures but not hard words. But I know most of my piece. Cathy teached me."
Andy was to make his first public appearance at the P. T. A. meeting Monday evening. His kindergarten class was to perform a short play about Goldilocks and the three bears. Once a year the Oakhurst elementary school put on a program by the pupils for the parents. This year Cathy was to sing in a girls' chorus and Jerry, one of a rhythm band, was to shake bells during the playing of "The Stars and Stripes Forever" by John Philip Sousa. Andy had an important part on the program. He was to speak a poem to introduce the play about Goldilocks. Miss Prouty, his teacher, called it the prologue. Andy called it his log piece.
Jerry took the grimy piece of paper. "Let's hear it," he told Andy. "Shoot."
Andy stood with his legs far apart, his head tilted upward as if he were reading his "piece" from the ceiling. His usually merry face looked solemn, his dark eyes worried. Hardly above a whisper he recited:
We welcome you, dear parents,
And hope you'll like our play.
'Twas written by Miss Prouty's class
Just for the P. T. A.
"How could your class write a play when you don't even know how to write?" asked Jerry.
"I can print all my name," said Andy in his normal voice. "Miss Prouty says that part of writing is thinking and saying. So she read 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' to us three times. Then our class said it to her and she wrote it down. But she wrote my log piece by herself."
"You'd better say the first verse again and a lot louder," Jerry suggested. "Nobody will hear you if you don't speak good and loud."