“Nothing like experimenting,” grinned Scoop, and he gave the frog another shake. [[33]]
“Rats!” he yelled.
“R-r-r-a-t-s!” rumbled the frog, “R-r-r-a-t-s! R-r-r-a-t-s!”
Scoop laughed.
“Wait a minute; wait a minute,” he said, trying to hush the frog up. “You’re talking out of your turn. You mustn’t say it more than once.”
“R-r-r-a-t-s!” rumbled the frog. “R-r-r-a-t-s! R-r-r-a-t-s!”
We pretty near died, we laughed so hard. Then the school bell rang and we dumped the invention into the lunch box and started on the run for the schoolhouse. And every time we jiggled the lunch box the frog would rumble at us: “R-r-r-a-t-s! R-r-r-a-t-s!”
“To-night,” grinned Scoop, “we’ll try it out on some hard words like ‘cat’ and ‘bat.’ ”
I had to stay in at recess that morning. For there was a music memory test and, as usual, I got the names of the pieces all mixed up. I’m no good at music.
Maybe all public schools haven’t music memory contests, so I’ll write down what it is. You see, each room has a talking machine. And at the beginning of the school year the board of education picks out twenty or thirty records. Not easy pieces like, “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” but a [[34]]lot of hard truck that is called classical. These records are played over and over again by the teacher. And at the end of the school year we are supposed to be able to write down all of the names of the pieces when the teacher plays them and give the names of the musicians who made them up.… It’s all right for a fellow who has an ear for music.