“Do! Me! Sol! Do!” he sang in staccato notes, nodding the sparse gray foretop jerkily with each note as bass, alto, tenor, soprano took up their pitch. Thereupon he seized the pointer, a long switch kept conveniently near in the corner, and indicated the first note of the staff.
Scarcely had the pointer tapped a full measure before the school realized they were singing by note an old familiar tune and with that they burst forth with the words:
| Oh! have you heard Geography sung? For if you’ve not it’s on my tongue; First the capitals one by one, United States, Washington. |
They changed the meter only slightly as they boomed forth:
| Augusta, Maine, on the Kennebec River, Concord, New Hampshire, on the Merrimac. |
Of course they knew it was the Geography Song from their McGuffey Reader which the singing master had set to tune. To make sure they had not forgotten the McGuffey piece he halted the singing and directed that they speak over the piece together, which they did with a verve:
| Oh! have you heard Geography sung? For if you’ve not, it’s on my tongue; About the earth in air that’s hung. All covered with green, little islands. Oceans, gulfs, and bays, and seas; Channels and straits, sounds, if you please; Great archipelagoes, too, and all these Are covered with green, little islands. |
Philomel Whiffet sometimes had his school do unexpected things that way. And now once again they went on with the geography singing lesson, putting in the names of places and rivers to the tune.
Far and wide traveled Philomel Whiffet’s singing school, wafted by note from freedom’s shore to African wilds. They knew it all by heart. On and on they sang, and Drusilla Osborn’s voice led all the rest: